Sub-Zero Strawhat
by SubZeroDragonSlayer
Summary: Instead of eating the Gomu Gomu no mi on that fateful day, he eats the Hie Hie no mi and discovers his haki two years before Shanks comes over to his village. How will this change the story? Read and find out. OP!OOC!OLDER!SWORDSMAN!HAKI!Luffy. Flames will be ignored. Rated for freedom, violence, maybe language. Will update only when possible. Also, LuRo is in this.
1. Devil Fruit and Haki

'thoughts'

"speech"

* * *

(Dawn Island- East Blue)

In the dead of night, all was quiet in the forest outside of Fuschia village, nothing except the insects made a noise-.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, HELP ME!"

-And the terrified screams of a young child, yeah. Completely normal. A seven year old child was sprinting through the forest, running away from a small pack of wolves. The child had raven colored hair, dark colored irises, and a frantic expression on his childish face. His shirt was in rags hanging off of his body, so no use describing them, he also had on a pair of tattered shorts, and open-toed sandals.

Luffy was in the forest because his grandfather threw him in here alone...again.

'I gotta find a place to get rid of these god damn wolves.' Luffy thought, he's been running for at least 10 minutes from the canines behind him, he needed shelter. As if to answer his prayers, he suddenly stumbled into a clearing with an incredibly large tree in the center, it looked like an oak tree, it was about 20 meters tall with a 10 meter wide trunk. From what Luffy could tell there was a hole that looked large enough to fit him within the tree.

Without a second thought, he pushed his burning, sore legs even more to get him to the tree, feeling his lungs burn more from exertion, not forgetting about the barking and growling wolves behind him. In less than 15 seconds he made it into the tree hole successfully with a bounding leap and scurrying up the rest of the way, getting the wolves off of his tail. Heh, get it? You know 'cause the wolves- and the- yeah, okay? Okay, back to the story.

Luffy was on his back huffing and puffing, gulping in mouthfuls of precious oxygen, trying to regain his breath, and famished. Deciding to see if he was lucky enough to find a single morsel of food, he looked over to his left, and, as if Lady Luck was on his side today, he saw an entire fruit, but it was strange.

The strange fruit was a light blue color, shaped like a pear covered what looked like teardrop shaped lumps that had swirls on them with a green curled stem coming out of the top of it. 'Even though it looks weird, gotta eat to survive.' With that final thought in mind, he took the fruit and took huge munches out of the fruit, getting past the bitter taste, and swallowing it down.

After a few moments of devouring the fruit, he felt something weird with his arm, like something slightly chilly, he looked down and saw it was frozen. 'Wait, frozen?' Indeed, his arm was covered in ice, from the front of his fist to his elbow.

"AHHHHH, GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!" Luffy started freaking out before noticing his arm didn't feel stiff or cold at all, it actually felt completely normal except for the slight chill on it, he focused on turning his arm back to normal, and it worked. His arm was as fleshy as he remembered it. Concentrating on his arm again, he turned it back to ice, seeing and feeling it work, he smirked. "Things are gonna get really interesting from now on." feeling the day's exhaustion crash into him, he froze the inside of the trunk, not feeling comfortable unless he did, and settled his head on the wood of the trunk burrow thing and embraced the peacefulness of sleep.

* * *

(The next morning)

Luffy woke up, groggily rubbing the sleep from his eyes, looking around the frozen interior of the tree, feeling oddly comfortable with the frigid temperatures around him. Waking up fully when he remembered that his grandpa was supposed to pick him up from the forest in the afternoon, memorizing the old man's schedule. He soon got out of the tree and started venturing into the forest, picking and eating edible berries on the way and testing his new devil fruit powers.

After walking for a short while, he could just see a clearing through the trees and saw a pack of wolves resting, the pack of wolves that nearly ate him last night, looking intently at his soon-to-be multi-course meal, he smirked and placed his hand on the slightly moist ground preparing to freeze it to keep them in place while he takes them out. He concentrated and pushed out his ice as fast as it could go and the moist earth froze in less than a few seconds. The ice nearly got to their legs but they ran off, whimpering, before it could.

Luffy stood up, confused at their actions, before he could contemplate it any more, he felt a warm rush of wind on the back of his neck, paired with a growl and snarl. He froze (pun not intended), thinking of what it could be, he slowly turned around and nearly screamed in terror. Behind him was a tiger, one that was larger than anything he'd ever seen.

The monster before him towered above his small frame, lips drawn back in a snarl, yellow eyes glaring at him with a bestial hunger, putting two and two together, he finalized that he was its new dinner. The tiger opened its maw and roared in Luffy's face showing him the nasty row of razor sharp teeth, and giving him a faceful of the tiger's rancid breath that stunk of, what he could only guess was, the remnants of corpses of many woodland creatures, and maybe some people in there too. As the roar died down, Luffy got in gear and bolted away, eyes wide in terror and gasping in gulps of air into his burning lungs and pushing his aching legs as hard as he can with the beast trailing behind him, knocking trees down as if they were wet paper towels.

Luffy took a sharp right into a small opening the first chance he got, but all that did was make the tiger skid along the ground to have it on his tail not a second later. The chase kept on going on for about five or so minutes before Luffy burst out into a clearing, nearly running into a rock wall, the tiger was now right behind him, licking its chops,and gaining a satisfied glint in its eyes, knowing that its prey had nowhere else to go. Luffy backed up in fear until his back hit the rock wall behind him, and he was rooted to his spot, at the mercy of the Tiger Lord.

'This can't be it, it can't.' Luffy desperately thought before clenching his fists and glaring up at the tiger in fierce determination. 'I won't die here, it'll be a cold day in hell before I go down without a fight!' With new intense determination and will within him, he turned his right arm into ice and slammed his palm onto the ground. Willing his ice to freeze the moist earth, but as he was preparing to do so, he felt a slight tug in his gut, not thinking anything of it he let his instincts take the wheel, and with a grunt of exertion, he sent out ice all around him, possibly 30 metres out in all directions turning the earth into solid ice, along with the tiger who was frozen in mid swipe with its paw a meter shy from Luffy's head.

Feeling tired, Luffy started to stumble for a short distance, leaving the clearing behind him, mist rolling off of the ice, before he pitched forward, his exhaustion catching up, but before he could reach the ground a pair of strong hands caught him and gingerly picked him up. The man holding him in his arms was his grandfather, Monkey D. Garp, a Vice-Admiral in the Marines.

He looked at the aftermath of Luffy's show of power, though already having seen it, he just wanted to study it again to be sure. "So he was born with it, but where did he get a devil fruit?" the Vice-Admiral muttered, seeing all of the unconscious animals at the fringe of the clearing. Without another word, Garp walked off, seemingly to some place to set up camp.

On the way he thought of what he saw, before putting it aside for tomorrow, he'd have to discuss some things with his grandson, but not now seeing as Luffy would be unconscious for the rest of the day, he soon arrived at the campsite he set up and laid Luffy down before laying down himself to get some sleep.

* * *

Like it? Love it? No flames please. Please review, tell me what you think.


	2. DF and Haki Explanation and Training

In reply to ItsTheCxC: I've tried making smaller paragraphs in this one, hope it's fixed.

In reply to WaMiLoe: Thanks for the input and review, maybe this can help you with your opinion on this story, and Hyo Hyo no mi is a different spelling of Kuzan's Hie Hie no mi.

'Thoughts'

"Speech"

* * *

(Dawn Island - East Blue)

It was dawn when Luffy woke up, he felt like he was being carried. The young boy looked around from his position, before he remembered what happened and snapped awake but he stopped when he heard his Grandpa's voice. "Awake are you?" Luffy looked in front of him and saw his Grandpa, so that's who was carrying him, before he could speak, though, the old man did. "I have some questions to ask you when we get home, so just go back to sleep." Garp told him softly, not looking back at Luffy. Still feeling tired, Luffy obliged and put his head on back down and was sleeping in an instant, still feeling really tired.

(short skip)

Luffy woke up on a soft bed when sunlight hit him in the face, causing him to turn onto his right side, not knowing he was right on the edge of the bed, and fell off the bed. Luffy groaned on the floor and got up, he suddenly remember that he was carried from the forest by his grandpa, so he walked out of his room to the kitchen, and he saw his grandpa sitting at the table, eating rice crackers out of a clear plastic bag. "Gramps?" Luffy called out, and he was ushered to sit at the table with him, noticing the serious expression on his face, Luffy obliged and sat across from Garp.

"Luffy, do you know what you did yesterday?" Luffy just asked what he meant by that, because a lot happened and he didn't know what the old man was referring to. "I mean when you froze that giant tiger, Luffy." the seven-year-old had realization on his face at that, he then nodded, and simply said that he froze it. "That's not all you did, Luffy, you also knocked out at least half of the forest animals from where you were." Luffy looked quite shocked at what he heard, but didn't interrupt. "What you did was caused by your haki."

"What's that?" Luffy asked, he wanted to know about this 'haki', it seemed really interesting.

"I was just about to explain that. Haki is basically a weaponized form of your spirit, there are three types of haki. First there is Haoshoku Haki, this haki is the rarest type, it allows you to overpower the wills of people who are weaker than you in either mental strength, physical strength, or both. Very few are born with it, you are one of those people, but right now, yours is very unstable and sporadic, you need training in its controlled use, and as soon as we finish this discussion I'm going to train you to control it. Second, there's Kenbunshoku Haki, this type of haki allows you to sense where other people are if they're too far away to be seen, or can't be seen. If this is mastered, it will allow you to predict someone or something's movements before they're made. Finally, there is Busoshoku Haki, this can be used offensively or defensively, when used defensively it can be used to make invisible armor over you, when it's used offensively, you can infuse it with anything you're holding, or to make your body armor and bypass devil fruit defences, this can be trained along with Kenbunshoku Haki." Garp, having finished his explanation, silently ate his rice crackers as he let the information sink into his grandson's head.

"What's a devil fruit?" Luffy asked curiously after a few moments.

"A devil fruit grants the person who ate it powers, but it takes away their ability to swim, you ate one of the devil fruits yourself." Luffy's eyes went wide, understandable because he just found out he could never swim again, from what he could gather. "There are three types of devil fruits, paramecia, zoan, and logia. A paramecia fruit gives the person superhuman abilities, such as their body being turned into rubber, or they have a body as hard as steel. Zoan fruits give the person the ability to transform into three differents forms, hybrid, full human, or full creature, such as a leopard or a bull. Logia fruits allow the person into the element they control, like you, Luffy, you ate the Hyo Hyo no mi, it allows you to turn your body to ice and freeze basically anything near you if you will it to happen." Luffy looked amazed at what he could do with his fruit, and what the other fruits could do. "Just know, you can only eat one, if you eat more than one, you'll die, so don't think about eating another one." Garp finished it off with a warning glare, knowing what Luffy was thinking at that moment. Hearing that, Luffy's hopes of becoming really powerful were crushed in that sentence.

"Now that we're finished, are we going to go training?" Luffy's excitedly asked, remembering what his grandad said earlier.

"Yep, but first we have to eat." at this their stomachs rumbled in hunger, causing them to jump into gear and go hunting for meat and other forms of sustenance.

(a few hours later)

Luffy was sitting lotus style in front of his grandpa with a blindfold covering his eyes while the old man held a bat.

"Remember, Luffy, try to sense everything around you, the forest, the animals, everything." Luffy just nodded in understanding and started breathing deeply and slowly.

The seven year old let his senses go free taking in everything around him, just like his grandpa told him. He could sense the birds jumping around in the trees, the insects flying around, and his grandpa swinging the bat at his head from the left. Quickly computing this, he leaned his head quickly to the right. He felt the bat coming in for another swing from the right this time, so he leaned left, he continued dodging until he felt his concentration slip just the slightest and BAM, he was sent flying.

As Luffy laid on the ground from the most recent hit he took, he thought over something. 'He used Busoshoku Haki in that, I can tell somehow.' Luffy slowly got up, his head throbbing in pain, he saws his grandpa still holding the bat in the position it hit Luffy in.

"That was good for your first session, Luffy." Garp praised, proud of his grandchild. "However, you still need more practice to dodge effortlessly." Luffy nodded determinedly, somewhat excited for future training. "Alright, let's continue for a few more hours, then turn in." Luffy just nodded again, and got ready for more.

(a few more hours of training later)

Luffy stumbled into the house, worn out, and slightly bruised from the training he went through with his grandpa. He was about to head into his room when he heard Garp call out. "Luffy, we're doing this daily for the whole month, so rest up." Luffy paled slightly as he leaned on the wall, he has to go through that for the whole month, but he accepted it wholeheartedly anyway. "You're going to have train with your devil fruit as well when I'm gone, so remember that, now go to bed." the small child didn't have to be told twice, he stumbled and tripped to his room and collapsed on the bed in exhaustion, embracing blissful unconsciousness after the day's hard work, only to face more the next day.

* * *

Like it? Love it? Please give insight, and reviews. Flames will be ignored.


	3. Bandit Disposal & Shanks

In reply to ichigo1508: Thanks for the insight, there will be more updates in the future as frequently as I can.

In reply to WaMiLoe: I'm glad you like the story so far, and thanks for the review it makes me glad that people enjoy.

A/N: Hey guys, I hope you're all enjoying the read, the reviews I've got right now make me feel overjoyed and inspire me to write more. Anyway, thanks for the sweet reviews and hope you enjoy the story.

'Thoughts'

"Speech"

* * *

(Fuusha Village - Dawn Island - East Blue)

(2 years later)

"What are you doing up there, Luffy?" a red-haired man called out, he was wearing a straw hat with a red ribbon around it on his head.

"I'm tired of you guys never taking me seriously!" on the top of a red dragon figurehead of a large pirate ship was a nine-year-old boy with black hair, and looked mad about something, as his eyebrows were scrunched together in a mixture of anger and annoyance. "I'll show you I should be respected!"

"Hey, Luffy's gonna do something funny!" a fat pirate with a large piece of meat in his mouth, and wearing goggles on his head.

"Come on, get it over with Luffy!" the red-haired man called out again, not taking Luffy seriously.

This seemed to be all Luffy needed to do what he was about to do. Using his devil fruit abilities, Luffy made a dry ice brand that looked like a large dragon with its wings spread out as if it was flying. He opened his red vest, and with a deep breath, he smacked the brand onto his torso. The resulting hiss of steam and the painful scream from Luffy made the large crew move into action.

"YOU IDIOT! WHAT WERE YOU THINKING!?" the red headed pirate shouted out looking furious at the child's actions.

* * *

(short skip)

(Party's Bar - Fuusha Village - Dawn Island - East Blue)

Luffy sat at the bar next to the red haired man, his eyes screaming he was in pain, but his voice said another thing. "That was like a mosquito bite, didn't feel a thing."

The man next to him hit him on his head. "Liar, don't do that again." he still looked irked about what Luffy did.

"But Shanks, I'm not afraid of pain, so let me join you." the child pleaded with Shanks.

"No way, for one thing, you're too small and young," this made the child pout, "plus, you can't even swim, anchor." Shanks ended with a teasing tone with a mischievous grin on his face.

Luffy frowned, but then got a mischievous grin on his own face. "At least I don't have tomato hair." Luffy chuckled to himself while Shanks looked shocked before he looked angry.

"WHO HAS TOMATO HAIR YA BRAT?" Shanks shouted at Luffy getting everyone's attention.

Luffy still had a mischievous expression on his face. "You do, tomato hair." he had a teasing tone to it. He also had a victorious tone mixed within. As soon as Luffy said that, all of Shanks' crew stared at their captain for a second before they all burst out laughing.

"Pfft, you know, captain, you DO have tomato hair, HAHAHAHAHAHA!" the crew's sharpshooter said through a fit of giggles, he had dirty blonde dreadlocks a blue button up shirt and a headband saying 'YASOPP' across it.

"YASOPP, YOU ASSHOLE!" Shanks shouted, he was really annoyed at the teasing from his crew.

A few minutes later, the crew calmed down, and Luffy asked again. "Shanks can I join your crew?"

Shanks spared Luffy a side glance, before giving a small smirk. "Fine," Luffy's eyes brightened in excitement, "MAYBE you can join if you can knock me down, if you can hit me over to that wall over there," he pointed to the far wall, to his left, "I'll actually do you one better," at this Luffy looked even more excited, "I'll bring you with us to the Grand Line and New World for training, no questions asked, deal?," he held his hand out for Luffy to shake.

Without hesitation, Luffy shook the offered hand with enthusiasm. "Deal." by now the entire bar had their attention on the duo. Luffy and Shanks got off of their stools and the captain stood opposite Luffy with a lazy stance. Said child held up his fist and had a look of concentration for a second. Suddenly, his fist turned a shiny jet black, causing many people's eyes to widen in surprise. Luffy jumped up and hit Shanks in the gut, launching him over to the opposite wall, when he hit the wall, he slumped against it.

Now, Shanks had taken a lot of hits before and they didn't hurt, but he was expecting those. But Luffy, a nine-year-old kid had just used Busoshoku Haki like he had been training for years and hit him hard enough to make it hurt for a few seconds, he certainly wasn't expecting that, and it hurt.

Meanwhile, Luffy looked proud at the hit he landed on Shanks, and victorious because he won the bet, this meant he could travel with Shanks' crew for ten years. "How's that Shanks, this means you gotta train me." Luffy held up his fingers in a victory sign.

Shanks was still trying to regain his breath after having the wind knocked outta him. After getting his breath back he spoke up. "You're right Luffy, you won, I'm gonna train you for 10 years. In celebration, we need to have a party!" this was answered by a chorus of cheers and agreements.

But before anybody could celebrate, a woman came out from the back of the bar, she had dark green hair was wearing a simple dress, had dark colored eyes and a bandanna tied over her head. "What's going on out here, there was a lot of banging."

"Makino, I won a bet, so Shanks is going to take me with him to train me for 10 years." Luffy excitedly stated before anyone else could.

Makino looked shocked for a second before a large smile beamed on her face. "That's great! We should celebrate." the barmaid exclaimed happily.

"We were just planning that." Shanks said with a smile on his face, though his stomach still stung slightly. Him and Luffy sat down on their respectable stools and ordered some food and drink.

Everyone was having a good time celebrating, then BAM! The door was kicked open by a rugged looking man who was wearing an overcoat over a rough looking white shirt, and a pair of black pants and had a saber on his waist, behind him were other men had the same looking outfit. A turban on their head, a white shirt, a red sash across their waist, and a saber on their waist.

The man had an arrogant smirk on his face, and walked like he was the big dog in town. He walked up to the counter and slammed his hand down on it, startling Makino. "Me and my men are thirsty, give us 10 sake barrels and we won't trash the place." he spoke with an arrogant tone, expression, and air about him.

"S-sorry, b-but I'm fresh out of sake." Makino nervously stammered.

"Then what are these weakling pirates drinking, water?" he spat out the name like a curse, looking at Shanks and his crew with distaste.

"Looks like me and my crew drank all the sake, sorry." Shanks spoke casually, holding up a bottle of alcohol. "Here, you could have the last bottle."

The bandit glared down at Shanks as if his presence alone angered him, he then smashed the bottle with his fist, sending glass and drink everywhere, soaking the ground and Shanks. "One measly bottle won't satisfy my or my group's thirst."

"Now look what you did," Shanks complained nonchalantly, "you got the floor all wet. You got a rag, Makino? I'll clean it up for ya." Makino was shocked out of her stupor as she hurried to get a rag.

This seemed to enrage the man more, he pulled out his saber and swiped at the food and drinks on the counter, sending the plates of food and tankards of rum everywhere further soaking Shanks. "Do ya see this ya damn pirate?" the man pulled out a poster that read 'WANTED' on the top and 'DEAD OR ALIVE: Higuma the Bear for 8,000,000 beri. "I'm a wanted man for 8,000,000 beri. I ain't gonna waste my time here, see ya later weaklings." Higuma called out mockingly walking out the door, his group following him.

"Shanks-san, are you okay?" Makino asked worriedly after the bandits left, kneeling down next to him.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Shanks replied, resting his hand on his strawhat before shooting his head up and bursting out laughing along with the rest of his crew.

Luffy just sat silently, mostly understanding why Shanks didn't fight back, he wasn't stupid. As everything calmed down, and everyone just started chatting, Luffy asked a question to his idol. "Shanks, when can we start training?" Shanks looked thoughtful for a second, then he replied.

"That depends, when is Garp comin' around?" Luffy looked thoughtful, trying to remember what his grandpa said.

"He's gonna be here next month, then three months after that." Luffy explained. "When you leave, come back after four months, so that he won't notice, maybe."

* * *

(The next day)

Luffy was sitting at the bar counter with a glass of ice water in his hands with a large grin on his face.

"They're not here today, Luffy. Do you miss them?" Makino asked kindly from behind the bar, getting a meal ready for Luffy.

"Of course I do, they're like a family to me." Luffy said, putting the glass to his lips and drinking the cold beverage.

At that moment, Higuma and his bandits burst through the door, immediately ruining Luffy's mood. "Wench, get us food and alcohol, we're customers and deserve to be serviced."

Hearing the thug's disrespect towards Makino, he frowned and clenched his cup in anger. The only reason it didn't break was because the water inside was already frozen along with the glass.

"R-r-right away." Makino nervously stammered and got them food and drink. As she was walking away from a table, one of the bandits smacked her ass, and that was the breaking point for Luffy.

Multiple things happened at once. Luffy's Haoshoku Haki burst out and knocked almost all of the bandits out, his frozen glass shattered, he made ice darts out of the frozen water and threw them at the bandit that harassed Makino, hitting him in different parts of his body, at which his body parts started to freeze in ice, and Luffy launched out of his stool at Higuma, who was launched out of the bar by Luffy's haki-enhanced punched out to the street.

Higuma was shocked out of his wits, one moment he and his little group of bandits are having fun talkin' about the weakling pirates yesterday, the next, he feels an immense pressure, most of his group passes out, one of them starts getting frozen and something really hard hits him out of the bar and into the street. When he looks up he sees that nine-year-old brat that was sitting at the bar walking out of the building, but the right half of his face is ice, as well as his arm.

"You just couldn't shut your mouth, huh?" Luffy's annoyed voice sounded out. "You just had to keep talking and talking, and you harassed my mom like she's your plaything." Luffy looked seriously angry, and with his face half frozen, he looked terrifying.

Higuma ran off, terrified of the monster that was behind him. He kept on running until he got to the docks, he got a small row boat and rode it out to sea. 'HA! They won't ever think to look for a mountain bandit out here.' Higuma's thoughts were slightly hysterical. He then saw a shadow overcome him and a large splash. He looked up and saw a monstrous eel-like creature behind him. It had red glaring eyes and a ripped fin, Higuma had new fear instilled upon him by the beast in front of him.

Before he could let out a scream, the sea king opened its maw and swallowed the bandit and his boat whole, not caring at all for the wood, and ending Higuma's life. Back at the bar, Luffy sat at his stool, the bandits already woke up and ran out, tails between their legs, never to come back. Makino also passed out, not from his haki, but shock from what happened, so she was upstairs, resting.

* * *

(At the docks - next day)

Luffy sat on top of a barrel cross-legged, leaning side to side in excitement with a large grin on his face, humming happily. As soon as he saw Shanks' ship and jolly roger, a skull with a jagged three-lined scratch across the left eye, with daggers for cross bones, he started waving his arms excitedly, shouting, "OIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII, SHANKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!" laughing his odd laugh, "Shishishishi-."

When the ship docked, Luffy ran up to Shanks excitedly asking What they would do for training.

"Just meet me at the bar, then we can talk about it." Shanks replied

(Short skip)

Luffy was sitting at the bar counter with Shanks, the rest of the Red-Haired Pirates were getting supplies for the upcoming voyage.

"So, your grandpa's comin' next month, huh? Why should we wait three more months to come and get you?" Shanks questioned the boy with a quirked eyebrow.

"Because," Luffy swallowed some food he was eating, "knowing my grandpa, he probably did something without telling me, like adopting me a new brother, who knows? Anyway, it's gonna take a while to befriend him, maybe three months. That's why." Luffy said. It was highly probable that his grandpa really did something like that.

"I see, we should get going then." Shanks said, walking to the docks with Luffy and Makino in tow. When they reached the docks, Shanks turned to Luffy. "We won't be seein ya for another four months, but even with my training, you couldn't be a decent pirate." Shanks teased the boy.

Luffy got angry, and shouted. "I WILL BE A GOOD PIRATE, I'LL BE BETTER THAN YOU! I'LL HAVE A BETTER CREW, AND I'LL BE THE KING OF THE PIRATES!"

"Oh? You're gonna be better than us, huh?" Luffy just nodded determinedly. "Then," Shanks reached up to his straw hat and put it on Luffy's head, shocking him still, "I want you to look after this hat for me, it's a great treasure to me. I want you to give this hat back to me when you become a well reputed pirate." Luffy just nodded a few silent tears dropping down his cheeks.

* * *

Longest chapter so far. Hope you enjoyed, please leave a review, flames will be ignored. Have a nice day.


	4. Setting Off! Start of Romance Dawn!

In reply to jossan13: I'm glad you like it, more updates will be sure to come.

In reply to WaMiLoe: Sorry if you don't like the whole 'Luffy sees Makino as his mother' thing. I kept Shanks on the island so that Luffy still met Ace and Sabo, and Garp wouldn't go crazy if he didn't see Luffy on the island. Luffy is training more in his haki because it's still slightly unstable, as his Haoshoku burst out when his temper flared and not when wanted. Sorry, again if it's not steering in the direction you like and I hope your opinion changes.

In reply to Blackstriker94: Glad you like the story, I hope you won't be dissappointed with future chapters.

In reply to Luffy: Yes, Luffy still does meet Ace and Sabo. I'm glad you enjoy the story, I'll continue updating until the end.

'Thoughts'

"Speech"

Also, I can't believe I forgot this, but Disclaimer:I don't own One Piece, or anything belonging to Eiichiro Oda.

* * *

(Fuusha Village - East Blue)

(10 years later)

A six foot tall nineteen-year-old man was on the docks of Fuusha Village, loading a barrel onto a small row boat. The man had spiky, raven black hair that was covered by a worn strawhat with a red ribbon around it, and his irises were black as coal. He was wearing an open red long sleeved cardigan, that showed his lean but muscular torso that had what looked like a large burn that covered his chest and down to his navel. The scar showed an over-the-top view of a dragon with its wings spread out as if it was flying through the sky, the tip of its tail stopping at his navel, and its nose stopping in the middle of his sternum. The man also had a pair of blue shorts that went down to his knees, a pair of open-toed sandals, and a yellow sash wrapped around his waist with the end hanging out and was holding a katana in an obsidian black sheath, its hilt a dragon skull with wings on the sides of its head, this sword was named Fubuki ryū*.

"You're leaving, Luffy?" the man, now specified as Luffy, turned around to see the village's mayor, Woop Slap. "You could stay here and protect the village with your abilities, you know."

"I know, mayor, but becoming the pirate king is my dream, and to do that I need to head out to sea, so I can't stay here." Luffy replied, holding his strawhat in front of him, gazing proudly at it. "Besides, I promised Shanks I'd do it." at this, he turned and looked the mayor with a small smile, planting his strawhat firmly back onto his head.

The old man just nodded, with a frown. "Fine, just try not to foil the village's reputation too much." he spoke with a sour tone, though Luffy could tell that was his way of saying 'good luck, don't get killed'.

"Thanks, mayor, I'll be safe. Tell everyone I said bye." Luffy got into his small raft and pushed off of the dock, rowing out further. Hearing some faint hollers, he looked up and saw the entire village waving their hands and shouting goodbye.

He stood up, and shouted back. "SO LONG, EVERYBODY! I'LL BE BACK WHEN I BECOME PIRATE KING!" while he was shouting this he had his 'D' grin on his face. It was wiped off of his face when he felt a presence behind him that was rising in the ocean, and racing towards him. 'You think I'm becoming your meal, you damn fish?'

Soon enough a large figure was surfacing from the water, and a large eel-like Sea King rose up and towered over Luffy, its murky green scales glinting in the early morning sunlight, moss hanging from its body in several places, and its red eyes staring down at Luffy in hunger.

Luffy slowly turned around and let his hat hang on his neck by a string. He looked up at the Sea King and smirked. "I guess it's time to test what I learned from training." with a low murmur of 'geppo' Luffy launched into the sky, getting at the monster's equal eye height, and planted his hand on his sword's handle. "Fubuki hadō!**" Luffy shouted, swinging his katana out and sending an ice blue air blade at the Sea King.

The air blade sliced cleanly through its neck, the entire monster stopping dead for a moment before the head slid off and splashing in the water, blood spraying out of its neck stump, turning the deep blue waters red with blood.

Luffy landed back on his boat when the blood stopped spraying and falling. He turned around and could see the shocked faces of his home village. He grinned at their reaction, and laughed his trademark 'shishishi' laugh. He lied down in the boat, leaning against the front edge of it, tilting the hat to shadow his eyes.

* * *

(A few hours later)

"PIRATES!" a spotter on a cruise ship shouted out, seeing a pirate ship heading straight at the vessel, he also noticed the crew grouping together at the railing that was closest to the cruise ship, showing their intention to board them. "GET TO DEFENSIVE POSITIONS! THEY INTEND TO BOARD US!" he shouted down to the soldiers on the deck, making them rush to get their weapons and move into position.

Meanwhile, an abandoned barrel got dropped on its side and rolled down to the lower levels, hitting the wall at the bottom of the steps.

A minute later, a scrawny, pink haired kid with large round glasses walked down the steps and saw the barrel. "What's this?" he walked up to it and tried to lift it up, but it was too heavy for him to do so, so he rolled it into the nearest room, which seemed like a kitchen of some sort. "I wonder what's in here."

"What ya got there, Coby?" a mocking voice called out, shocking Coby into fear.

"I-i-i-it's j-j-j-j-j-just a barrel I-I-I-I found outside, s-s-s-so I brought it i-i-i-n." Coby was shaking like a leaf in an F5 tornado. When he turned to the voice, he saw three of the men that made his living hell for him on Alvida's ship

One of them walked up to the barrel and put it upright with a grunt. "Damn, this thing is pretty fuckin' heavy, it must be full of some booze." the pirate finished off gleefully. "Let's pop this baby open and lighten it a bit." he spoke with a smirk on his face.

"What if L-L-L-L-Lady A-A-A-Alvida catches us?" Coby asked, pale as a sheet, he shrieked in terror when one of the three put a sword on his neck.

"Well, you ain't gonna tell her, right chore boy?" Coby could only gulp and nod fearing for his life.

When one the pirates was about to break open the barrel lid, Coby heard a groan come from inside the barrel. 'What's in there?'

When the pirate was close to hitting the barrel, a fist sped out of the top of the barrel, hitting the pirate hard enough to knock him out. The barrel exploded out in a flurry of wooden splinters and a couple bolts and screws as well. "God dammit, can't get some fuckin shut eye without getting attacked out of nowhere."

Everyone still conscious looked towards the source of the voice and saw a six foot tall man that looked no older than 20 who was lazily scratching his messy raven black hair, slightly yawning. He was wearing an open red cardigan that showed his lithe, muscular torso that's scarred by a large dragon shaped scar on his chest, he was also wearing a pair of blue jean shorts that went down to his knees, a pair of open toed sandals, and a yellow sash with the end hanging off and holding a sheathed katana to his left waist.

The man's coal black eyes scanned the room he was in, until his bored gaze landed on the three gobsmacked pirates on the floor. "Eh, who the hell are you?" the man rudely asked.

"THAT'S OUR QUESTION TO YOU!" the two pirates shouted at the man, finally reacting to the situation. Coby, though was still shocked in place, not knowing what to make of the situation.

The man just looked around some more, before his gaze landed on the unconscious pirate. "That's the guy I knocked out, huh? Serves him right." he carelessly stated, before kneeling down in front of Coby. "Do you know where I can get any food, I'm fucking starving."

"DON'T IGNORE US!" the two pirates jumped at the squatting man, swords raised high. The strawhat man simply stood up, put a hand on his katana, and in the blink of an eye sliced the pirate's swords in half, cleanly and cut the pirates across their chests, shoulder to hip, sending blood to the air, their bodies collapsing into their pools of blood, unconscious.

The man sheathed his sword with click, and was still in front of Coby. "So, food?" he turned around and politely asked the boy, who was shocked out of his stupor, and fearfully ushered him to the pantry he saw during the earlier confusion.

When the mystery man walked into the pantry, he saw a large bag of apples and started digging in like he hadn't eaten for a whole week.

"Who are you anyway?" he swallowed an apple he was chewing on and turned to Coby, who was sitting there awkwardly. "You don't look like a pirate." At this Coby flushed red and looked down at the floor.

"Well, two years ago, I was going to go fishing, so I was going to get a fishing boat ready, but instead, I mistook a pirate ship for one and boarded it on mistake." at this point, Luffy stopped eating and was looking at the pink haired boy, gobsmacked. "When, I figured out it was a pirate ship that belonged to "Iron Mace Alvida", so I had to give up my freedom so that I wasn't killed by them. So, I was their slave for two years, basically."

As Coby finished his story, he waited for the man across him to answer. Finally, he answered, but not the way that Coby hoped. "How in the living hell do you mistake a big pirate ship for a small fishing boat. Are you a moron?" if death by embarrassment was possible, Coby would be dead and six feet under.

"Anyway, I'm Coby, what's your name, and why are you at sea?" Coby asked, hoping to change the subject, it worked.

"Nice to meet you, Coby. I'm Monkey D. Luffy, the reason I'm here out at sea is because I'm gonna become King of the Pirates." Luffy proclaimed proudly, either not noticing Coby's shocked expression or just not giving a shit.

"PIRATE KING!?" Luffy nodded. "THE Pirate King!?" another nod. "No, no, no, no, that's completely, positively imposs-FLICK!" Coby's hysterical rant was stopped by an impossibly strong flick to the forehead that launched him about a meter and a half back. "Oww, why'd you do that?"

"One," Luffy held his index finger up, "you were hysterical, and two," he put up his middle finger with his index finger, "because I felt like it." he flatly stated.

"Why do you want to do be the Pirate King? You'll have to go through the Grand Line and the New World, as well!" Coby shouted, panicked.

"Yeah, so? I don't give a shit if it's impossible, I'll do it because it's my dream, and if I kick the bucket fighting for it, I don't give a shit." Luffy stated in all seriousness, shocking Coby with his intensity.

'His dream? Maybe if I fought for mine, just maybe...' "Luffy-san," said man looked over at Coby, "do you think I can do it?" Luffy cocked an eyebrow in questioning, "if I fought for my dream, my dream to become a Marine, do you think I could accomplish it?"

"Heh," Luffy chuckled, "how the hell am I supposed to know?" Coby looked up at Luffy as he walked up to the door to get out. "But, a Marine, huh?" Luffy asked, and Coby's confidence went through the roof.

"That's right! I wanna become a Marine and capture bad people like Alvida, and throw them into jail, right where they belong!" just as Coby finished his proud exclamation, the pantry door splintered and exploded into tiny wooden fragments, accompanied by a loud as all Hell screech.

"COBY!" it was as if a switch had been flipped, and Coby was back to his old, wimpy self again.

"It's L-L-L-Lady A-A-Alvida." Coby fearfully stuttered out.

Luffy looked over at the clearing dust from the impact, and saw this so called "Lady Alvida", and boy, she did not look lady like atall. The person before him was at least 5'3", freckles all over her face, her black hair a scraggly mess, she was wearing a plaid shirt, grayed pants, shoes with gold buckles over them, and a purple sash holding a flintlock pistol, and she was holding a giant iron mace over her shoulder.

"Coby, are you sure that this is a lady? She's worse than a beached whale." Luffy bluntly stated shocking Alvida's crew, Coby, and enraging Alvida herself.

"What did you say, YOU BRAT!?" without waiting for an answer, she swung down her iron mace at Luffy and Coby.

Before the bludgeon could hit, however, Luffy grabbed Coby by the scruff of his shirt, and muttered, "soru" and disappeared up to the top deck where the rest of Alvida's crew was. As soon as Coby got his bearings back and saw the crew, he squeaked in terror and hid behind Luffy.

"Coby," Luffy spoke out seriously, catching the boy's attention, "if you're gonna become a Marine, you can't look away, no matter what." Luffy drew his sword, its silvery-blue blade glinting in the sunlight, Luffy lazily held it to his right side, ready to slice and dice. "But, you should hide somewhere, it's gonna get messy." Coby had no qualms and hid behind some crates, a ways back.

"You bastard! You think you can take us on!" one of the pirates shouted out in a cocky manner.

"No, I don't think I can," some of the pirates laughed out at this, "I know I can. This many weak pirates against me is like a bear cub." said pirates looked outraged at this, and started to charge.

Luffy smirked under the cover of his hat, and gained a dangerous glint in his eyes. He charged straight towards the crowd of pirates, slicing through the ones he passed, sending blood flying from deep cut wounds that are barely keeping them alive, leaving them unconscious in a pool of the crimson liquid.

Coby watched on, astonished, it looked like Luffy was dancing through the large pirate crew. Soon enough, everyone was either, dead or knocked out from blood loss, and Luffy wa standing in the middle of the carnage, blood dripping from his sword, the drips sounding as if they were amplified a hundred-fold.

Alvida soon came up from the lower area, huffing and puffing like she had just run a marathon. When she saw the scene before her, she was shocked stiff. "Wh-wh-what the hell happened?" her eyes then fixated on the nineteen-year-old standing in the middle of it. "YOU! YOU DID THIS!" she roared in an outrage at the teen.

"Yep, sorry about that." though his voice said sorry, his eyes or expression didn't. "In case you're wondering who I am, I'm Monkey D. Luffy, pirate." Luffy sheathed his sword after cleaning it off by swiping it to the side.

At this, Alvida smirked, getting some of her bravery back. "So, you're a pirate? That makes us enemies then, right?"

Luffy nodded, "I guess so." he sensed Coby starting to creep towards him and another person sneaking behind him, he smirked to himself.

Before Alvida could say anything more, a pirate popped up from the upper railing behind Luffy and pulled out a pistol. He pulled the trigger and shot straight at Luffy. The bullet never hit its intended target, as Luffy simply dodged it with practiced ease, and kicked an air blade towards the pirate.

"Rankyaku!***" a pale blue air blade was flying straight at the offender and hit him right in the chest sending blood everywhere from his wide open wound. Everyone stared, gobsmacked at the display, this man just kicked out an air blade.

"Attacking from behind isn't nice," Luffy blandly stated, lowering his leg down, "now then, can I get a small boat for me and Coby, we're leaving to make him a Marine."

Alvida looked furious at this. "WHAT! Coby, are you really going to commit treason against me?" Alvida questioned with a smirk, not believing a thing.

"O-o-o-of course-," Coby was about to say 'of course not, Lady Alvida', but he suddenly remembered what Luffy said earlier.

'I'll do it because it's my dream, and if I kick the bucket fighting for it, I don't give a shit.'

'I'll fight for it, Luffy-san, and I won't care if I die.' Coby took a deep breath, and shouted out. "Of course I am! WHO WOULD WANT TO BE STUCK WITH AN UGLY, OLD SEA HAG LIKE YOU!?"

Everyone was shocked stiff, except for Luffy, who was laughing uproariously. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, that's exactly what I wanted to hear." seeing Alvida's mace hand tighten around her weapon, he prepared to step in to stop her.

"You little," Alvida was burning scarlet with rage, "BRAT!" she jumped towards Coby, who wrenched his eyes shut in fear.

'I did it, and I have no regrets.' Coby waited for the mace to squash him like a bug, but didn't get hit, he opened his eyes, confused, only for them to open wide with shock.

"Nice job, Coby. I'll take it from here." Luffy was standing in front of Coby, his left hand in his pocket, and holding up the mace lazily with one bare hand. To say everyone was shocked would be an understatement.

Alvida's expression was the textbook definition of shocked. Jaw wide open, eyes the size of dinner platters, and her voice caught in her throat.

"This thing is really light." Luffy carelessly stated, as if he wasn't holding an enormous iron bludgeon with one hand. "You're in our way, so I've got to get rid of you." Luffy pushed up with his hand, shoving Alvida off balance, pulled back his right fist and dashed up to less than two feet of her.

"Busoshoku: koka." his right hand turned a jet black up to his elbow. He launched his hand forward and hit Alvida in the gut, sending her flying out to the ocean, screaming in pain. "Get us a boat, we've gotta make Coby a marine." No one argued, and got them a boat.

BOOM!

"Shit, it's the Marines. If they catch us here, we'll be brought into jail. Coby!" said boy scurried over next to Luffy, "Come one we're getting outta here. I wanna make you a Marine, but not in this way."

They ran over to where the lifeboat they were given was hanging. Luffy and Coby jumped into the small boat. Seeing he couldn't lower it fast enough, Luffy cleanly sliced the ropes, and the boat plummeted down thirty feet, to the ocean, frightening Coby and shocking a female in a boat like theirs that they landed next to.

"WHAT THE HELL?" hearing the shout, Luffy turned to his left and saw an orange-haired girl who was wearing a blue and white striped t-shirt a bandanna on her head, calf-length pants, and a pair of gladiator like sandals. On the boat with her was a large bag that seemed to be filled with some things.

Luffy just flashed a quick grin and turned to Coby. "Which way is the nearest island with a village on it?" Luffy questioned, Coby pointed in the direction of the cruise ship. "Dammit, I don't wanna do this, but I have to, it's a dire situation." He thought out loud.

Without another word, Luffy drew his sword and raised it above his head with both hands on the handle and swung down, as if attacking someone. After a split second silence, the cruise ship suddenly split in half, as if cut cleanly down the middle, which wasn't far from the truth, really.

Sheathing his sword, Luffy got the oars in the boat and starting rowing through the path he made by slicing the ship in half. He noticed Coby staring at him mouth agape. "What? Wait, don't answer, it's because of the ship isn't it?" Coby just nodded. "Well, I am incredibly strong." this statement was said without any cockiness, just 100% truth. "Anyway, I'm getting some shut-eye, make sure we get to the island alive and unharmed, please." with that, Luffy leaned back, angled his hat over his eyes, and set his hand on his sword handle, embracing the world of dreams.

* * *

New longest chapter, done! Please review, do what you like. Flames will be ignored. Hope you enjoyed.


	5. Roronoa Zoro Enters!

In reply to Luffy: If people want the crew to be larger, I'll make it larger, and yes Luffy will help Zoro with swordsmanship, thanks for the idea. Thanks for the review it's good to know that people are reading my story and giving insight.

'Thoughts'

"Speech"

Don't forget: I edited the first and third chapter, so be sure to check those out.

Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece, just this fic.

* * *

(Shells Town - Docks)

Luffy was laying down in the small boat, sleeping with his hat shadowing his eyes and his hand on his sword. He snapped awake when the boat hit the docks. "We here, Coby?" he asked Coby who sat in front of him.

Coby nodded. "Yeah, we made it." they tied the boat to the docks and walked into the town.

"How about we go to that bar there? I'm feeling up for a drink or two." Luffy suggested, feeling a taste for saké.

"You can go ahead, I need to talk to the leader of the marine base here, Morgan, I think his name was." Coby said, at the name 'Morgan' everyone jumped away from the two boys in the street. "Actually, let's go to the bar."

When they entered the bar, Luffy went directly to the counter and sat down followed by Coby, who wasn't comfortable without being near Luffy, the sub-zero captain was looking around for a bartender to get him a drink. He found a woman who was going around taking orders, when she noticed him and Coby, she walked over and got behind the counter.

"Hello, my name is Ririka, would you like anything today?" the barmaid asked politely.

"Yes, I'd like some saké and some info on that Marine base you got here." Luffy requested of the barmaid, whispering the last part.

Ririka got Luffy a bottle of saké and set it in front of him with a glass next to it. "Well, the Marine base is led by Lieutenant Morgan, also Roronoa Zoro got captured and sent there a couple weeks ago." she informed them. Luffy raised an eyebrow at the last name, and lowered the saké bottle from his lips.

"Roronoa Zoro?" he asked quietly, but loud enough to be heard by the other two. He thought he heard some things about Roronoa, but he couldn't remember.

"Roronoa Zoro is the most terrifying person ever, I've heard that he's a demon in human skin." Coby was as pale as a sheet explaining Zoro, as if he would just appear out of thin air and kill him. "He's menacing with those swords of his, I've heard." Luffy's interest shot up when he heard that Zoro was a swordsman, maybe he can teach him some things.

"Come on Coby let's get you to that Marine base and get you signed up." Luffy said, standing from his stool after emptying the bottle.

"A-alright." Coby stuttered, following him anyway.

On the way to the base, Luffy spoke. "Do you think that Zoro will be a good addition to my crew?" Luffy asked. Coby was shocked still, and went pale again. 'Honestly, that can't be good for his health.' he thought, exasperated.

"W-why would you want him on your crew?" Coby asked.

"Isn't it obvious, he seems strong, he could possibly get stronger if I train him though." Luffy mused, before anymore conversation could be made they came upon the Marine base. "It looks like a piece of shit." Luffy stated blandly.

"Well, it looks like this is where we part, Luffy-san. I kno-" Coby stopped talking, noticing that Luffy wasn't next to him anymore. He looked over at the wall and saw Luffy climbing up a ladder and looking over it.

"There's a little girl talkin' to some guy out there. It might be Zoro." Luffy said nonchalantly.

"No way, they wouldn't keep Zoro out in the open." Coby argued, but was disproven when he looked over the wall. "It's him, it's Roronoa Zoro. That bandanna, that terrifying aura, that's definitely him!" Coby whimpered in fear.

"That's him, huh?" Luffy muttered. After some unheard interaction between the little girl and Zoro, a lanky man-child with onion shaped hair walked into the dusty courtyard with two marines acting as his bodyguards.

This time, the interaction was heard. "It's rude to bully kids, Roronoa." he had a snarky tone in his voice, like he thought he was king of the world.

"I don't like him." Luffy said as soon as the bastard came in.

"If it isn't the lieutenant's bastard son." Zoro growled out in frustration at the blondie.

"Hey, that's rude! Now what's this we have here?" he asked mockingly to the little girl, looking at her rice balls that she brought for Zoro. "Rice balls? Well, don't mind if I do."

"Wait, no! Those aren't yours!" the small girl protested.

"Bleh! This is too sweet!" the blonde shouted, spitting the rice grains out of his mouth. "You're supposed to use salt in these, idiot! Salt!" he smacked the remaining rice ball out of the girl's grip and stomping it into the dirt. "There, now the ants can eat it. What are you doing here anyway, brat? Don't you know the rule here?" he asked oh so snobbishly. The little girl shook her head 'no'. "The rule, written by my own father, Lieutenant Morgan states: 'Anyone who helps a criminal in any way is to be executed.'"

The girl's eyes widened in fear and she grew pale. The blonde smirked at seeing her fear. "You know what that means, don't you? But, since you're only a child, I'll let you off easy." the child's face brightened just a tiny bit, but fell at the man's next words. "You," he pointed to the marine on his left, who jumped at the sudden calling, "throw the kid over the wall."

"W-w-what, no Helmeppo, sir, I can't, she's just a child." the marine stuttered out, he obviously didn't want to do it, but he was forced to.

"I told you to do it, if you don't want me to tell my father, you will do as I say." Helmeppo growled in the marine's face, clutching at his collar.

"Y-y-y-yes sir." the marine stuttered, he knelt down and grabbed the girl, he seemed to mutter something in her ear before tossing her over the wall. Coby panicked momentarily, but stopped when he noticed Luffy had caught her.

"What's your name?" Luffy asked gently.

The girl looked up, she had brown eyes, and brown hair in two pigtails. "My name is Rika."

"Are you alright?" he asked, concerned.

"Yeah, thanks mister." she happily thanked Luffy.

"Coby come look after Rika, I'm gonna go talk to Zoro." Coby nodded and climbed down the ladder to watch after Rika. Luffy walked up to Zoro and waited until he was noticed. When the pirate hunter raised his head, Luffy spoke. "So this is Roronoa Zoro. Not that impressive, considering you're tied to a cross, dehydrated, and starving." Luffy spoke in a nonchalant tone, surveying the man before him.

"So what? What's it matter to you?" Zoro asked, glaring at the man before him, the man was wearing an open red cardigan, a pair of blue shorts, open toed sandals, a worn straw hat with a red ribbon around it, and had a katana at his waist, he'd have to ask about that later.

"To put it bluntly, I want you to join my pirate crew. You are the strongest swordsman in the East Blue, after all." Luffy stated with a slight smirk on his face.

"Why specifically me? There are other good swordsman in the East Blue, they're scarce, but they're here." Zoro said, confused.

"That's simple, my ambition is to be the Pirate King, so I can only have the best, even if it is only in the East Blue." Luffy responded, shrugging at the end.

Zoro gave a wolfish smirk. "Heh, why not, it sounds interesting enough, but you gotta wait 10 more days, that's all I'm askin'." Zoro replied.

Luffy tilted his head to the side. "Why? Wait, does it have to with why you're out here?"

Zoro nodded. "I made a deal with that blonde bastard, Helmeppo. If I can last 30 days without food or water, he'll leave Rika and her family alone. The only way I'm leaving is if he breaks the deal."

"Alright, I'll be back daily for ten days, if he says he's gonna kill you, I'll intervene and break you out. Who knows, I may also let out some steam on him." Luffy smirked and started to leave before Zoro called him back.

"Wait! Can you feed me that rice ball there?" he nodded towards the rice grains on the ground.

Luffy picked up the rice and held it in front of Zoro. "Are you sure you wanna eat this, it's more mud than rice, now." he asked skeptically.

"Whatever! Just give it to me." Zoro opened his mouth and Luffy tossed the rice in. Zoro choked a couple times, but swallowed every bit of it down. "Tell Rika that that was the best damn rice ball I've ever had."

"Alright, will do." Luffy said. He walked over to the wall and bound over it in one leap, landing on the other side, crouching low. He looked around and didn't see Coby or Rika, so he assumed that they went to the bar, so he started walking. Luffy saw Coby and Rika nearing the bar and decided to play a little prank. "Soru." he dashed ahead into the bar and sat at the counter.

"Uwahhh, Luffy-san, how did you get here before us?" Coby exclaimed from the door, Luffy just waved over at them lazily, ordering a bottle of saké for himself. Coby and Rika sat next to him.

"Oh, Rika, Zoro wanted me to tell you that he ate and enjoyed every last grain of your rice balls." Luffy said, grinning down at the young girl who smiled brightly.

"Really?!" she questioned hopefully, she looked like a child who was told she was getting the best present ever.

"Yep, he told me himself." as soon as Luffy finished speaking, Helmeppo busted in, arrogant as ever. He walked right in and sat down at a random table that was near the window in the front of the bar.

"Wench, get me the best food and drink you got, and make it free!" he shouted out, putting his legs on the table. "You know what, I'm gonna execute that Roronoa Zoro tomorrow, things have been getting too boring lately." he finished off with a snarky laugh.

Luffy stood in a rage and slowly walked over to the blonde asshole and stopped near him. "I thought you were going to give him ten days to get out." Luffy spoke dangerously low, feeling mounting anger at the snob before him.

"Of course I'm not, only an idi-BAM!" Helmeppo's sentence was interrupted by Luffy's fist knocking him out through the window and rendering him half conscious. "How dare you hit me, I'll get my father to kill you." Helmeppo half growled half slurred.

"You're just a piece of scum hiding behind your daddy's name like a little piece of shit, invoking fear into innocents and treating everyone like trash, all in all, you're just a withering piece of shit." Luffy spoke in a menacing tone, slowly drawing his sword, he was about to cut Helmeppo down when he heard a small voice from his right side and a tug on his cardigan, he looked down and saw Rika looking at him with watery eyes.

"Please don't do it, Luffy-nii," she pleaded, "although he's a bad man, please let him live." Luffy couldn't hold up his front against the look in Rika's eyes, he sighed and sheathed his sword, noticing Helmeppo was already gone, he turned to Rika and knelt down.

He placed his hand on her head. "Rika, I'm going to go get Zoro free, ok?" Rika wiped her eyes and nodded. "Coby! I need you to watch after Rika and Ririka for me, alright? I'm goin' to go get Zoro." Luffy called out to Coby. In response, he got a quiet sounding 'alright' from Coby.

(short skip)

Luffy jumped down from the wall into the courtyard where Zoro was held and walked up to the man. Zoro raised his head to see Luffy. "Zoro, Helmeppo decided to have you killed tomorrow, so we're leaving." Zoro's fists and jaw clenched in anger.

"That bastard." he growled out. "Hang on," he stopped Luffy as he was about to untie him, "before we leave, we need to get my swords first." Zoro said.

"Well where are they?" Luffy asked, he knew how important a swordsman's swords are to him.

"Helmeppo took 'em, he's using them as trophies." he spat the word out like a sour lemon, obviously angry with Helmeppo's presenting of his swords.

"Alright, I'll go get your swords and come back, it should be quick." Luffy said rushing towards the Marine base. He walked in through the front doors and came face to face with some Marines, he went up to the nearest one and asked plainly. "Where is Helmeppo's room?"

Though he wasn't doing anything, the Marine and those around him nearly wet themselves in fear. "I-i-i-it's on the third floor." he stuttered out in fear pointing to the stairs leading upstairs that were further down the hallway.

Luffy nodded and walked down the hallway, getting to the stairs and walking up to the third floor. He looked at all the doors he passed by, but one stood out. They were pink double doors with large print on a plaque 'MY ROOM'. 'It's obviously his.' Luffy thought, exasperated. He pushed open the door and walked in, grimacing at the ultra girly interior of the room. He saw three swords in the back corner of the room and walked to them, though he didn't notice the sleeping form of Helmeppo on the bed slowly stirring.

"Uh-? AAH! It's you, what are you doing here?!" Luffy didn't seem to notice as he looked at them carefully.

"There's three here, which one is Zoro's? Hmmmmm, meh I'll just take 'em all." Luffy shrugged and tied them to his back. He looked out the window and saw a large man with an axe replacing his left arm standing behind a firing squad of about 15 or 20 Marines all aiming at two figures, Coby and Zoro. 'I thought I told him to stay back and watch those two.' Luffy thought.

"I-I-I-I ask again. W-w-w-what are you doing here?" Helmeppo questioned, only to be ignored again. Luffy opened the window and drew two swords, his Fubuki ryū, and Zoro's white sword, his treasure. 'Sorry about this, Zoro.' Luffy jumped on the window sill and dashed out just as the tall man shouted out.

"FIRE!"

Luffy dropped in front of the firing squad with the swords drawn, and using his Kenbunshoku Haki he sensed where the bullets would be and sliced them all cleanly in half as they advanced to him, much to the shock of those present.

"Luffy-san." Coby muttered in awe.

"Y-y-you…You just sliced those bullets didn't you?" Zoro stuttered in awe before he went into rage. "YOU USED MY WHITE SWORD! I TOLD YOU THAT WAS MY TREASURE!" he raged, Luffy turned to him.

"I know it was but the other two would've shattered if I tried to slice the bullets, and you know it." Luffy argued, knowing he won, he held out the swords to Zoro. "Anyway, here are your swords, just grab them with one hand, I'll cut the ropes with my sword." Zoro nodded in affirmative.

The Marines were advancing on them with their swords held high, they assumed that since bullets won't work, blades will. Luffy sliced Zoro's binds with his sword in a blink of an eye and in the next second, Zoro unsheathed all three of his blades and blocked the Marines.

"A single one of you moves, I'll cut you down." Zoro menacingly growled at the Marines, making them squeal in terror. He looked to Luffy and spoke in a confident tone. "I'm joining your pirate crew, that is true, but I'm following my own ambition, and if you get in the way of it, I'll cut you down." Zoro said glaring at Luffy in challenge.

"That depends," Luffy smirked, "what is your ambition?" he asked Zoro, who smirked back.

"To be the best swordsman in the world." Zoro said with ferocious conviction.

"Good, I'd be embarrassed if I had anything less. The pirate king deserves only the best, of course." Luffy drew his sword and held it in a ready position. "Duck, Zoro," seeing what Luffy was going to do, Zoro ducked down and rolled away, "fubuki hadō!" Luffy sent a wide, ice blue air blade at the Marines, knocking the ones in front out, and injuring the ones in the back.

"Lieutenant Morgan, we can't defeat them!"

"Yeah, they're too strong!"

"We can't even take Zoro on by himself, and he's half dead!"

Morgan looked furious at his so called weakling soldiers. "Those of you who just admitted weakness, kill yourselves right now." this received shocked stares from the Marines. "That is an ORDER!" Morgan shouted, the Marines started to move their rifles to their heads, pulling the hammer back.

Luffy sighed and sent out a weak pulse of Haoshoku Haki and knocked the Marines out, drawing even more shocked stares but Morgan snapped out of it. "Who are you, scum?" Morgan questioned, shrugging off his jacket, leaving him in a sleeveless BDU, military pants, and combat boots.

"I think you have that backwards, shithead. You're the scum here, telling your men to commit suicide, that's the lowest of the low. I think I'll just finish you off in a second." Luffy let his hat hang on his neck and readied himself for a short fight.

Morgan brought his axe up, and brought it straight down on Luffy. Smirking, Luffy just sidestepped the sloppy swing that crashed into the earth and created a fault line that ran to the wall and cracked it. Luffy dashed forward and drove his fist into Morgan's gut, hard. The tyrannous Lieutenant puked out blood from the hit and was sent flying at the Marine base, crashing into the building.

"Anyone else wanna fight?" Luffy called out challengingly to the Marines who regained consciousness and were shocked still before they threw their hats into the air, cheering like freed prisoners. "Meh, not my problem. Zoro, let's get going." Zoro nodded and followed before he collapsed forward, panting.

"Hungry." he groaned before Coby could go into a panic phase.

(short skip)

"AAAH, that tastes amazing, especially when I hadn't eaten for that long. Any longer than now, and I would've died." Zoro exclaimed, picking up a saké bottle and chugging it down for a few seconds.

"Damn straight, this is some great food. Good saké, too." Zoro nodded in agreement as they clinked their bottles together. Luffy felt a tug at his shorts, and he looked down and saw Rika looking up at him. "What is it, Rika?" he asked politely, picking her up and placing her on his left knee.

"Is it true about what happened at the Marine base?" Rika asked curiously, getting a nod in return, her eyes widened in awe. "You must be really strong, then, Luffy-nii!" she said in amazement.

Luffy nodded. "That's right, and I'm only gonna get stronger and stronger and stronger!" Luffy said with a wide grin.

Coby looked sheepishly at Ririka. "U-umm, I'm sorry, but we've all seemed to eat a lot, even me." Coby looked down at his drink.

"Don't worry about it, you all saved us, after all. It's a celebration, eat as much as you like." Ririka said dismissively with a smile.

At that moment, though, Marines came into the building. They were led by a man with tanned skin and a goatee, he stepped up and spoke. "Excuse me, but are you two pirates?" he asked, looking at Luffy and Zoro.

"Yep, we're pirates." Luffy stated, letting Rika down on the floor.

"I see," the Marine said, "I'm Commander Ripper, new leader of the Marine base here in Shells Town. Even though you saved this town, you two are still pirates, so you have until tomorrow to leave." Ripper said with a commanding tone.

This was met by many arguments and protests from the civilians. Luffy stood up from his seat. "No, it's alright, I was planning on leaving today, anyway." Luffy said, he walked to Ririka and asked, "do you think that we can get some food for the trip?"

"Of course." she left to get more food for Zoro and Luffy's trip. When she got back from getting food, she gave it to Luffy and Zoro for them to take.

"Thanks for the food." Luffy said, bowing to the barmaid. He and Zoro were about to walk through the door, but were stopped by Ripper.

"Wait, isn't he with you?" he pointed to Coby and gave a side glance to Luffy.

"Who, that kid? Hell, I don't know 'im, he's just some brat that intervened, or at least tried to, but no, I don't know him." Luffy stated with a straight face, not showing any emotion.

"Alright, you can go." Ripper said.

"Come on Zoro, we're goin down to the docks." Zoro just grunted and followed his lead down to the docks.

"They're probably gonna see through your lie." the green-haired swordsman said, putting his hands behind his head, Luffy just shrugged the one shoulder that wasn't occupied by the bag he was carrying.

"Doesn't matter, Coby will be part of the Marines by the time they figure out," by this time they were at the docks, "or Coby may just spill it in some way or another." He and Zoro entered the boat, untied it from the dock, and spread the sail.

Zoro was about to speak, but Luffy held up his hand and sighed. He held up three fingers and dropped each one periodically. When the last finger dropped, they heard a shout.

"LUFFY-SAN! THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOU'VE DONE!" they looked back to the docks and saw Coby saluting them along with a line of Marines behind him.

"That's odd, Marines saluting pirates." Zoro smirked, Luffy just raised his hand and did a small wave. "So, Luffy," he hummed in acknowledgement, "where'd you get that sword o' yours?" Zoro nodded to the sheathed blade Luffy pulled up to his chest.

"Let's talk about this tomorrow, I'm tired, and there's no island for a few hours." Zoro just nodded and closed his eyes along with Luffy. "But, Zoro," he grunted, "I'm gonna train you in swordsmanship, alright?"

"Alright, that sounds exciting." Zoro smirked from the other side of the small boat. With that they both fell asleep, hands on their swords.

* * *

There, another chapter done. Hope you liked it, if you did, just drop a review, whatever ya want. Flames will be ignored.


	6. Enter Nami! Beat Buggy the Clown!

In reply to **a fan:** I'm sorry, there's going to be no Luffy x Nami, it all depends on the polls I've set up. It's going to be between Luffy x Robin and Luffy x Hancock.

In reply to **LoveLifeForever:** Ace and Sabo are still alive, I'm not that much of an asshole. Though, about Sabo getting a DF, that seems very interesting, I'll decide that soon, but which fruit, I'll figure that out. As for Aokiji, he's going to have a different fruit, which will be revealed soon enough. It's all going to be rather interesting.

_'Thoughts'_

"Speech"

Disclaimer:I don't own One Piece.

* * *

"Goddamn, I'm thirsty." Luffy complained, his hat shadowing his eyes and his hand on his sword.

Zoro grunted from the other side of the boat. "Yeah, too bad they didn't give us any saké. By the way, could I see your sword?"

Luffy looked at him questioningly, but gave it to him anyway.

Zoro grabbed the sword and pulled it from its sheath and looked impressed. "I think its a high quality one, it might be as good as your white sword there, but I need someone to price it for me." Luffy said, seeing his reaction.

"Where did you find this?" Zoro was swinging the sword around a bit.

Luffy grinned and scratched the back of his head. "Well, I got from the Grand Line when I was sailing through there." Zoro snapped around to him.

"You went to the Grand Line?" the green-haired swordsman asked, baffled. Luffy nodded his head saying 'yes'. "Why are you going again, then?" Zoro sheathed Luffy's blade and handed it back to him.

"The first time I went was a training trip, per se. This time, I'm going with my own crew, and becoming King of the Pirates." Luffy said, placing his sword back at his hip. He then looked over the edge of the boat and saw three people floating in the water, Zoro noticed and looked as well.

"Castaways." Zoro bluntly said, Luffy nodding in agreement.

The three people started waving their arms frantically, shouting. "OIIIIII, HELP US, PLEASE!"

"We're not stopping, so grab on!" Luffy shouted out, baffling the three floaters. They nearly missed their chance to grab the boat, it was so fast, but they got on the boat, albeit soaking wet, but got on nonetheless.

They were panting hard for a few seconds, before they looked up at the two pirates sitting there casually, as if they hadn't just nearly abandoned two people in need of help. The three pirates had clown makeup on their faces and sabers on their waist.

They drew their sabers and held them in front of themselves threateningly. "This boat is in control of the Buggy Pirates, put your hands up and drop your weapons." the middle clown said cockily. Luffy and Zoro looked at each other before smirking in a silent agreement.

"Y-y-you heard him didn't you?" the clown on the right stuttered. Zoro and Luffy stood up, a dark aura around them, simultaneously cracking their knuckles with wide grins on their faces, making them look like demons.

(one quick beat down later)

Luffy and Zoro were sitting in front of the three clown pirates that tried to steal their boat. "Hehehe, sorry we didn't know you were with Roronoa Zoro."

Luffy sighed. "What the hell were you doing out in the ocean, anyway? Are you guys idiots?" he bluntly asked, getting a small chuckle from his first mate.

The clowns spoke in order from left to right.

"We're not stupid!" left.

"Yeah! It's that red-head's fault!" middle.

"She was cute, though~." right.

"She tricked us into helping her." left.

"Yeah, she offered us treasure, and we all got into the boat." middle

"Then lightning struck the boat we were in." right

"Then she stole the boat we were using, then you came along and made us climb onto your boat." left.

Luffy and Zoro were both silent for a few moments before Luffy spoke up. "Did she know when the lightning would strike?"

The clown in the middle nodded. "It seemed she did."

Luffy smirked. "Sounds like a navigator, right Zoro?" said swordsman just nodded. "Now, you three," Luffy called out to the pirates, "you're going to row us to the island that girl went to." needless to say, they didn't hesitate to row their hardest.

(short skip)

As soon as the boat docked, the three Buggy Pirates ran off and Luffy immediately noticed one thing.

"Is the circus in town?" next to them, there was a large ship that looked to belong to a travelling circus, then he noticed the flag on top. "It must be Buggy's ship."

Zoro grunted. "Yeah, when are you gonna tell me about that thing you did at the Marine base?" Zoro side eyed Luffy.

"Hmmmm, let's find a building or somewhere private we can talk first. This isn't for too many ears in East Blue to hear." Luffy said seriously.

The small pirate crew walked aimlessly around until someone crashed into Luffy and fell while he stood tall and barely budged. They looked down and saw an orange haired woman wearing a short sleeved shirt, a yellow skirt with ring designs on the sides, and gladiator style sandals.

Behind the woman were three pirates that looked like the ones from the boat. Said woman looked up and Luffy immediately saw deviousness in her eyes and didn't like it. "Oh, boss! You're here, could you take care of these guys for me please?"

Luffy just raised an eyebrow at the woman that was dashing off. "We've been set up and left to deal with the bugs." he blandly stated, Zoro nodding with the statement.

"Hey, the girl said you're her boss, right? That means we don't even need her." the closest pirate smirked.

Luffy sighed and picked up his leg in a kicking position and brought it to the opposite hip. "Rankyaku." he boredly called out, swiping his leg across quickly, heel first, at the pirates creating a wind blade. It crashed into them, and launched them back 15 meters, knocking them out cold.

"How did you that?" Zoro asked surprised at this.

"Training, I'll tell you later, we seem to have an audience." he looked up at the building to their left, and a second after he said that, the woman appeared on the rooftop.

She smiled and spoke. "You seem strong to knock those guys out before I even got here, not a single scratch, too." Luffy took slight offense to the first comment, but shrugged it off.

"Based on your appearance, I'd have to say that you stole that small boat from some pirates." Luffy said, putting the pieces together.

"Of course I did, they were too stupid to realize the trap. What are your names, by the way?" the woman asked.

"My name is Monkey D. Luffy."

"Roronoa Zoro." at this, the woman's eyes widened at the name.

"Roronoa Zoro? Why are you with this guy, aren't you solo?" she asked, dumbfounded.

"That doesn't matter right now, what does though, is your name, miss." Luffy said, easily switching the topic.

"I'm Nami, I'm a master navigator and a pirate thief." Nami proudly said, smirking.

"Captain, what now?" Zoro whispered, discreetly moving his hand to his swords not taking his eyes off of Nami.

"Let's let things play out for now." Luffy whispered back. "How about we discuss why those pirates were chasing after you?" he asked Nami, who had jumped down from the roof.

"Why not? There's a house we could use." she said pointing to a house across the way. It looked abandoned.

They walked into the house and Luffy noticed it looked a bit rummaged through. "Do you live here?" he asked Nami.

"No I don't, just borrowing from it." she nonchalantly said, waving her hand as if to swat a fly.

"So, you're stealing from it." he stated blandly. "Whatever, as long as it's got booze, I'm parched."

"So am I, haven't had a drink in forever." Zoro said, looking around with Luffy for anything that indicated alcohol.

"Found some!" Luffy shouted in rapture. "There's a cabinet over here full of this shit!" Zoro dashed over and he and Luffy grabbed five bottles for themselves and sat down at the table Nami was.

"Anyway, what I stole from those clowns was this," Nami pulled a rolled up piece of parchment from behind her back and rolled it out on the table, "a map of the Grand Line." indeed, it was a map of the Grand Line.

"Why do you need a map of the Grand Line?" Luffy asked curiously, putting a bottle of saké to his lips, wondering why she would even try to go there solo. He went there himself, but he was with Shanks' crew then.

"I'm going there to get 10,000,000 beris from the pirates there to buy back a village." Nami said.

Luffy sighed, putting the bottle down with three of his empty ones. "Look, I'm gonna be blunt with ya," he adopted a serious face leaning on the table, "you won't even last five minutes out in that stretch of ocean, much less the pirates there."

Nami looked angrily at him. "What makes you think that?" she slammed her hand down on the table.

Luffy didn't flinch at all but smacked Zoro's hand away when he tried to take one of his still full bottles of saké. "Do you know how to navigate through the Grand Line?" he asked seriously, looking straight into her eyes.

"Isn't just like in any other ocean, just a compass and a map?" Nami asked inquisitively.

"No, that ocean doesn't follow logic at all, its weather patterns change dramatically, its magnetic field is crazy and that toy you have there won't work at all. As soon as you get into the Grand Line it might as well be a piece of shit on the ocean floor." Luffy said, leaning back and grabbing his mostly empty saké bottle and downing the rest before grabbing another.

"How do you know this, huh?" Nami asked, believing he was lying.

"I went through there and most of the New World when I was younger with my mentor."

'Might as well get this over with.' he sighed before continuing.

"Red-Haired Shanks." he dropped the bombshell, drinking more from his bottle.

"So that means you're a pirate?" the word was drowned in a venomous tone of voice, she reached behind her back for her staff but stopped when she was rammed by a strong pressure that sent a quake down her spine and could barely breath, she looked at Luffy and saw his concentrated expression, her eyes widened in terror. 'He's doing this, but he's not doing anything!'

Zoro was looking at Luffy curiously. 'This is just like the base. This is the same pressure, but it's just a constant wave other than a spike.'

"This is just the tip of the iceberg of what you might experience in the Grand Line, girl." Luffy was speaking like a mentor looking down on his student. "You wouldn't be able to touch a mass of the pirates in the Grand Line, they'd kill you in a second." Nami collapsed back in her seat, panting, as soon as Luffy let up on his haki. 'That took a lot of concentration to keep her conscious.'

As soon as Nami got her breath back, she saw Luffy and Zoro walking out with their saké bottles. She shot up and shakily rushed after them. "Wait!" Luffy smirked under his hat, knowing why she called out. "How about we make a deal?" she seemed slightly afraid and desperate.

"Alright, that sounds fun." Luffy agreed, but Zoro grunted next to him questioningly. "Of course we can trust her, Zoro." Luffy quietly assured. "So, what's the deal?" he asked Nami.

"If you can help me deal with the Buggy Pirates that are holed up in this town, I'll team up with you." Nami said, holding her hand out. "Do we have a deal?"

"Just one question. How good are your navigation skills?" the straw hatted captain asked.

Nami smirked. "I'll be the best damn navigator you'll be able to find." that was all Luffy needed to plant his hand in hers for handshake.

"You got yourself a deal, then." Luffy said, shaking her hand. "If we want to get rid of those clown pirates, we gotta hit 'em hard and fast. So, I say that Nami goes in first and gives up the map in a ploy, saying she'll join Buggy." Nami looked annoyed right here. "When they're all partying and distracted, I'll take out the weaklings of the crew, then me and Zoro will take out the remaining members." Zoro looked bummed that he couldn't fight a lot, but excited he could fight somebody strong.

"That's actually a good plan. I'm stealing all of his treasure, though." Nami said with a smirk and a matter-of-fact tone.

"Alright, let's get this underway." Luffy said, following Nami with Zoro to the pirate crew's hideout, ready to beat some pirate ass.

(ten minutes later)

Luffy and Zoro were on a rooftop not far from the bar the pirates were holding down at. Luffy sighed and spoke. "I guess now is a good time as any."

"Finally." Zoro grunted out from his left.

"What I did at the Marine base and in that house was something called haki. It's basically weaponizing your soul into fighting spirit, intimidation, or presence. The presence part is called **Kenbunshoku Haki**, I used that to cut all of the bullets in the execution yard. It let's you sense anything that is too far away to see or is unable to be seen, like it's behind something. When it's mastered, though you can use it to sense movements when they're about to be made or before they're made." Luffy explained. "Before you ask, yes it can be trained with one more."

Zoro grinned in excitement before getting a curious look in his eyes. "What about the other one that can be trained?" he asked his straw-hatted captain.

"The other trainable one is called **Busoshoku Haki**, this one is like putting on invisible armor, or putting visible armaments for offense. You can imbue this into weapons like your swords there," he nodded at Zoro's swords on his waist, "by doing this, you can bypass devil fruit defences and increase the strength of your attacks." Luffy explained.

"What about the other? Those two don't sound like what you've used before." Zoro said curiously.

"The third one is the rarest and the strongest if you can master it. It's called **Haoshoku Haki**, and only one in a million are born with it. When it's used, you're using your willpower as a weapon, when I used it at the Marine base, I overpowered the wills of the Marines there, though it was a weak pulse. I had to use a weaker wave, which is really hard to concentrate on, on Nami in that house to calm her down and show her what might be in the Grand Line." he explained again.

"One in a million, huh?" Zoro mused to himself. "Do you think I might have that?" he asked Luffy in genuine curiosity. Luffy just shrugged in response before turning to look at the bar Nami infiltrated.

"Let's go, I have a plan. As long as Buggy is as trigger happy as I'm told he is." Luffy muttered the last part under his breath, he and Zoro jumped down from the roof and landed in front of some stairs leading to the top of the bar.

"HAHAHAHA! Let's complete this celebration with firing a Buggy Ball into town!" Luffy heard a high pitched laughing accompanied with an annoying voice from the top of the bar's stairs that led to the roof, suddenly, Luffy jumped in the way of a large cannon on the roof.

The cannon fired when Luffy was at the crest of his jump. He put a hand in front of him, coated it in haki, turning it black, and catching the huge red cannonball that had Buggy's jolly roger painted on the front of it.

Luffy landed and called out. "Nami, get down here! I don't wanna hurt you with this cannonball I've got." after he said that, Nami came running down the stairs and stopped near Luffy and Zoro. Luffy started tossing the cannonball in his hand like a baseball for a few seconds before letting it rest on his palm.

By now, the Buggy Pirates were watching in shock at the spectacle before them, a scrawny looking teenager was tossing a Buggy Ball and catching it like it was nothing. "Hey, big nose!" everybody paled at what Luffy said, even Nami and Zoro looked shocked. "Have your toy back!"

Luffy cocked his hand back and threw it forward, launching the cannonball at the bar at least three times as fast as a battleship cannon. When it hit the building, there was a tremendous explosion.

The resulting shockwave would've knocked the three on the floor, if not for Luffy putting up an ice shield just tall enough, wide enough, and thick enough to cover them from the shockwave and enough to hold against it.

The two were shocked at the ice and looked to Luffy for an explanation. "I'll tell you guys later, right now Nami has some treasure to steal, I have got a red nosed clown to fight, and Zoro has two idiots to fight." Luffy said, dispelling the ice he put up, making it shatter into crystalline shards.

The three looked up and saw that Buggy and one of his crew covered themselves from injury by using crewmates. Buggy used two men and the man next to him used a large lion to block the explosion. "Using their own men as shields. That's despicable." Nami spat out quietly from next to Luffy.

Before Luffy could say anything, they heard a voice from the man holding up the unconscious lion. "Captain, this is a disgrace to us." the man that spoke had hair covering his right eye, was wearing a scarf, an open blue, sleeveless overcoat and had a sword on his hip.

"You're right, Cabaji, this infuriates me beyond words to describe it." Buggy growled out dropping his two meat shields.

"HEY, BIG NOSE GET YOUR ROUND RED NOSE DOWN HERE SO I CAN HONK IT!" Luffy shouted out, shocking Nami and Zoro with his choice of words. Buggy was practically glowing red with rage at what Luffy said.

"Bara bara ho!" Buggy shouted in outrage, launching his hand at Luffy at breakneck speeds. His hand had three large daggers in between his fingers. Luffy smirked under the shadow of his hat, and let the hand stab him in the chest.

Nami and Zoro's eyes went wide at this, and stared at the falling body of Luffy, while they heard Buggy's obnoxious laughter. Zoro's face grew dark in a second, he was pulling his blades out when he heard laughter from behind him. He turned around and saw Luffy's body shaking a bit.

Buggy was ranting and raving about how he was the strongest and how he was going to rule the Grand Line with his fruit powers, and Nami was still silent, shocked by the scene before her, she wasn't noticing anything else.

Luffy could barely hold in his laughter at everyone's reactions, but when Buggy calmed down, he laughed his usual laugh. "Shishishishi-, you're pretty stupid, Buggy." he started to get up, he still had the knives in his chest, but they were misting and looked frosted over, he stood up to his full height and started stretching his arms over his head, preparing to fight.

This shocked Nami out of her stupor. She rounded on the straw hat captain in anger and obvious confusion. "What the HELL! What just happened?" Luffy just shushed her with a raise of his hand.

"I might as well explain." Luffy said, pulling the daggers out of his chest, finally Buggy snapped, shouting out.

"WHAT THE HELL! Wait a second, you ate a devil fruit, didn't you, brat?" Buggy quickly calmed down after thinking for a second(shocking).

"That's right, I ate the Hyo-Hyo no mi, a logia class devil fruit. It allows me to turn my body into ice, control ice, and freeze almost anything at will." Luffy finished, drawing out his sword. "Let's have some fun, Buggy." he said with a wolfish grin on his face.

Cabaji jumped at Luffy, his swords drawn about to attack him, but Zoro blocked Cabaji's descent onto his captain. "If you're a swordsman, I'll gladly take ya on." he gave a wolfish smirk at the scarf-wearing swordsman.

Cabaji gave his own smirk. "I'd be honored to duel the great Roronoa Zoro." he cockily said, jumping back to get some space between the two, they lunged and the fight began.

Luffy turned away from the fight and paying attention to Buggy, knowing his first mate can handle himself.

"Who cares if you have a logia fruit, I'll still beat you, you little brat!" Buggy shouted cockily, getting more knives between his fingers and shooting his hand out at Luffy again. Luffy jumped up into the air to dodge it, Buggy smirked triumphantly. "You can't dodge so well in mid-air, can you?" he willed his hand to launch at Luffy, but he wasn't expecting Luffy to kick the air to dodge the blades.

Luffy landed on top of a nearby building and turned to Buggy, smirking. "It looks like I can dodge in mid-air, doesn't it rubber nose?" he mockingly asked the clown, enraging him.

Before Buggy ranted about being insulted, he noticed the straw hat hanging off of Luffy's neck. "That straw hat, it reminds me so much of that red-haired bastard." he growled out, Luffy tilted his head curiously.

"You know Shanks?" he asked interestedly. "He took me through Paradise and the New World when I was younger, but I don't remember him mentioning a clown before, though." Luffy mused out loud.

"No wonder you anger me so much, you act just like that bastard, Shanks, that idiotic hat just emphasizes the point!" Buggy yelled out, stomping his foot and pointing his reattached hand at Luffy like a child would to an older sibling that teased them.

"Don't insult Shanks, big nose, he gave me this hat, it's my treasure." Buggy got even more angry at the insult, Luffy jumped down from the roof, noticing that one of Buggy's hands were missing.

"If that hat is your treasure," Buggy started out menacingly and Luffy's haki flared up, warning him of an incoming object from behind him, but it was just too late.

SLASH!

Luffy's eyes widened in anger and resentment, he heard Buggy shout triumphantly. "PROTECT IT BETTER!" he started laughing his annoying laugh that further enraged Luffy. He had flashes of memories, Shanks giving him the hat, the promise they made on the hat, and they proud smile on Shanks' face when Luffy set off back to the East Blue.

Buggy noticed Luffy's expression shadowed by his hair. "What's wrong, little baby mad that he lost his little toy?" he mockingly asked, throwing the hat on the ground and grinding it into the dirt with his shoe. He failed to notice, though, Luffy sheathing his sword and the right side of Luffy's body started turning to pale blue ice with mist billowing off of it.

The ground within a 50 meter radius was suddenly frozen over, and a deathly chill settled over the area. This shut Buggy up immediately, as a quake of fear went up his spine at the suddenly oppressing aura of Luffy and his now dark voice.

**"Buggy, I've had enough of your bullshit, this ends now."** Luffy suddenly disappeared, making Buggy snap left and right looking for the teen that was now out for blood, his blood.

He suddenly felt an ice cold burning sensation on his side that instantly traveled lower down his legs and over his spine, he screamed out in pain and looked down. His lower body was frozen, but burning in unimaginable pain.

Buggy snapped his head up when he heard footsteps, he saw Luffy walking toward him with his sword drawn. The blade, though, was black along with his hand. He knew that it was coated in haki.

**"You should be unable to move by now."** Luffy's dark voice came out again, steam billowing out with every exhale. He was right though the ice had numbed his spinal cord, cutting off all movement to his lower body. **"I'll end this now."** Luffy got down into an iai stance.

**"Ittoryu Iai: Tōketsu shi,"** Luffy dashed past Buggy, cutting him at unseen speeds, **" jigoku fukushū!*"** his sword was an inch out of the sheath, he slowly slid it back in, the sound of it somehow amplified.

SNAP! SLASH!

When the sword was fully sheathed, numerous slashes appeared on Buggy, blood spraying out like a fountain. Buggy collapsed forward with a wet smack on the frozen floor, blood splashing outward, unconscious and more blood pouring out from his mouth and chest, painting the ice below red with his blood.

Luffy sighed and looked around at the frozen earth, he spotted his hat by the downed clown, unstained but had three large gashes in it. He picked it up and sighed again. 'If Shanks gets it like this, he's going to be pissed off at me.'

"U-umm," Luffy turned and saw Nami looking nervous about something, "I can fix the hat for you." she said, pointing at the sliced hat.

Luffy was silent for a second before grinning his D grin. "Thanks Nami, it means a lot." he said. Luffy looked over at the treasure bag Nami had picked up. "How much treasure do you think is in here?" he asked Nami, who brightened up at the mention of the word, lifting the atmosphere greatly.

"There has to be 10,000,000 beri in here!" she squealed happily snuggling the bag.

"Maybe we should split this into two halves, it's gotta be heavy for you to drag it." Luffy said, looking at the large bag behind Nami.

"Yeah, you take one, I'll take the other." the red-headed navigator said, getting some cloth to make the two bags, and evenly splitting the treasure into both bags.

"We leavin', now?" Luffy grunted in affirmative, and started walking down the road with Nami and Zoro following.

Luffy and Nami were now both holding small bags of treasure over their shoulders, well, Luffy is. Nami is cuddling it like a teddy bear.

_'She's really doing that?'_ he thought, a sweatdrop going down his head at Nami's behavior. His thoughts were cut off as they rounded a corner and saw a horde of villagers carrying pitchforks, and other dangerous or sharp things from their homes.

"Who are you people? What were those loud noises and explosions?" The man in front asked out. He was wearing what looked like leather armor on his body, exposing his bespectacled elderly face.

"We're just some travellers that docked here, we took care of your little pirate problem, as well, so you might wanna call the Marines." Luffy said to the old man, in response, he got a pitchfork shoved in his face by a villager.

"Who are you really?" Luffy took side glances at Nami and Zoro, they all seemed to silently agree on something for once.

_'Tell, then run.'_

"We're pirates." Luffy bluntly said, causing the villagers to go into outrage.

Without wasting another second, the three person pirate crew ran off away from the angry mob of villagers to the docks. Noticing that they were getting close, Luffy had an idea.

"Zoro," said man looked over, grunting questioningly, "hold my bag, I need both hands to do this." Zoro raised an eyebrow, but did it anyway, taking the small-ish bag over his shoulder.

Luffy grabbed Zoro and Nami by the scruffs of their necks and jumped, high. In one jump, Luffy was already 50 ft in the air.

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!" Nami was screaming in terror, balling up around the treasure, Zoro looked shocked still, tightening his grip on the bog.

"Which way are the docks?" Luffy asked, lightly kicking the air to stay afloat. Nami pointed ahead of them and slightly to the left, Luffy gave a slightly harder kick below him to elevate and give him enough time to adjust for what he was about to do.

When he was starting to fall down he leaned forward, almost horizontal, and kicked the air again hard, launching him and his 'passengers' to the docks. They would've fallen in the ocean if Luffy didn't kick in front of him again to stop them from doing so.

"Get the bags in the boat, we're leaving." Luffy ordered the two. Nami put her bag in her small boat and Zoro got in his and Luffy's boat bringing the bag with him. Luffy untied the two boats from the dock and pushed off, leaving behind a large village of an angry mob yelling at them to never come back.

Luffy just smiled and turned to lay down to sleep, covering his eyes with his hat when he remembered it was ripped. "Nami, could you fix this, please?" he showed Nami his hat, she nodded and grabbed it from his hand.

"It'll only be at least thirty minutes, and it'll be done." Nami went inside her small boat and started working on Luffy's hat.

_'Might as well sleep, I'm exhausted.'_ Luffy then remembered something. "Zoro, I'm going to train you and Nami in haki when we get a large enough ship." Zoro nodded and went to sleep, holding his sword to him. Luffy followed suit, laying his hand on the pommel of his sword.

* * *

Holy shit, I'm finally done. I'm deeply sorry about the slow update, I had school to deal with and that's never fun. Again, I am SO sorry, I hope you enjoyed reading, please leave a review if you like to. Flames will be ignored.

*(Tōketsu shi jigoku fukushū=Frozen Hell Vengeance)


	7. Enter Usopp! Kuro's Defeat!

In reply to **riffin121294:** I'm glad you enjoy the story. LuRo is indeed quite rare to see on the site, it's also one of my favorite pairings. Anyway, glad you enjoy the story, hope you keep on liking it.

In reply to ** :** I'm glad you like how this story is going, thank you for the compliment. I do hope you keep reading the story, it's gonna be a long one.

In reply to **Guest(1):** Thanks for the review, it makes me feel overjoyed that people read this and enjoy it. I hope you keep enjoying this story. Feel free to review more.

In reply to **Guest(2):** I'm happy you enjoy the story, I'll keep updating this as much as possible.

In reply to **Guest(3):** I'm glad you enjoy the story, I'll see if I can dumb down Luffy's strength so that he isn't godlike. He'll still be overpowered, though. I hope you enjoy the future chapters.

In reply to **Guest(4):** Thanks for the review, I appreciate every review I get. (Unless it's a flame.)

In reply to **bloodyrose:** Thanks for the praise, I'm glad you're enjoying it. I'll keep this story going, it will never be brought down and I will keep updating when possible.

In reply to ** .1:** I was already told this, Hyo Hyo is actually another spelling of Hie Hie. Although this isn't really saying much about the story, I still appreciate the review, hope you enjoy the rest of the story.

In reply to **coduss:** I'm happy you're enjoying the story, I'm also happy that you and everyone else has followed the story. I do hope you'll keep enjoying the story in the future.

In reply to ** .3950**: Even though not enough people voted, I'm still putting her on the crew, because I do what I want, but Kuro didn't get the estate, I hope you still enjoy the story despite that. Anywho, please continue to read the story and review on later chapters if you feel the need to, I really hope you enjoy the story.

In reply to **BloodyFangKing95:** I've edited the story and description and changed the mistake, I do hope you enjoy the rest of the story.

_Sub-Zero Strawhat has broken the 90 follows and favorites mark with 97 follows and 95 favorites! I am so elated at this achievement! I hope you guys enjoy the story, I'll keep getting chapters out as fast as I can and when I'm able to. I hope you've all enjoyed the story thus far, and hope you keep doing so._

_'Thoughts'_

"Speech"

Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece.

* * *

Luffy groaned as he woke up from a sharp jerk. 'We must've landed.' he concluded, placing his hat atop his head, bringing his sword back down to his hip and standing in the small boat.

"What island are we at, navigator?" he heard Zoro's gruff voice from the shore.

"I told you, my name is Nami, not navigator. Anyway, this island is called the Gecko Islands, it has a small village called Syrup Village on it, remember, we're going to get a ship and some supplies, not cause trouble." Nami's reply came.

Luffy felt four presences on the cliff ahead of them as he walked onto the shore. He put his hand on his hilt along with Zoro. "We're not alone."

The green-haired swordsman grunted in affirmative from his left while Nami looked confused before seeing four people spying on them from the ridge. "They're over there." she said, pointing at the top of the hill.

Three of the people hiding there screamed out. "AHHHHHHHH! THEY FOUND US!" the three kids shouted, seemingly running away, Luffy sensed the children move to some bushes to the right of him and his crew.

The last presence stood to his full height. He was a tanned teenager with a long nose, dark curly hair reaching his shoulders and a bandanna around his head.

"Pirates, leave this village, now! It is under the protection of the Usopp Pirates, if you attack this village, you will have to face my fleet of 8,000 men!" the teenager, presumably 'Usopp' spoke out with a tinge of fear in his voice.

_'He can't be serious.'_ Luffy thought, a drop of sweat rolling down the back of his head. The reason being that dozens of pirate flags came out of the bushes at the treeline and only six of them started moving up and down.

Luffy exhaled a bit and looked over at the bushes the six moving flags were at. He pointed and grinned smugly. "You mean those three brats?" the aforementioned children jumped up from their hiding spot and ran for the hills.

Usopp looked shocked at his front being seen through, he quickly recovered though. "Though it's true I don't have that many people, my skills with this slingshot," he pulled out a green slingshot from his satchel and held it in front of him, ready to use, "outmatch anyone's skills with a regular pistol." he said, readying his slingshot to fire.

Luffy shadowed his expression with his hat. "If you say that, put your life on the line."

Usopp looked a bit confused at this, but readied a shot anyway.

The straw-hatted captain levelled a serious glare at Usopp. "That weapon in your hand isn't a tool for threats, it's a tool for action. As soon as you let that pachinko fly, it's on." he flicked his sword out of its sheath just a bit.

Zoro flicked his out as well and smirked. "This man before you is a real pirate."

Usopp looked terrified at the three pirates below him. They weren't even trying to intimidate him, he collapsed to his hands and knees, trembling in fear. "Alright, do your worst." he closed his eyes, expecting the worst, but he soon heard the three pirates laughing from the bottom of the slope.

Luffy managed to calm down enough to speak a slightly coherent sentence. "We're not gonna do anything, I took that line from somebody I idolize and tweaked it a bit." he said, Usopp relaxed a bit at that.

"Your name is Usopp, right?" Luffy asked, getting a nod from the teenager. "Do you know a man named Yasopp by any chance?"

Usopp looked shocked by the name 'Yasopp' before jumping into gear and rushing down the hill, falling on his face in the process before recovering quickly, he was in Luffy's face and asked hurriedly. "How do you know my father, is he alright?"

"Yeah, he is, how about we go to a restaurant and talk about this more?" Usopp immediately agreed and started walking to the village he lived in. "Zoro, Nami, come on." they just nodded and followed behind Luffy.

(short skip)

Luffy, Zoro, Nami, and Usopp were sitting in a booth at a restaurant called "Meshi" talking about Usopp's father. "Your dad is an honorable man, he talked about you so much, I practically know you by now." Luffy said, taking a swig from his saké bottle.

"My dad is at sea, huh?" Usopp spoke proudly. "Where is he now?" he asked curiously, leaning on the table.

"I don't know where he is exactly, he could be anywhere from Paradise to the New World with Shanks, but I know he's doing fine out there." Luffy said, emptying his bottle and placing it on the table.

"With Shanks, huh?" Usopp said quietly before getting a shocked look on his face. "Wait, Red-Haired Shanks!?" Luffy nodded, ordering another bottle of saké. "One of the Yonko, that Red-Haired Shanks!?"

"Yep, the one and the same." Luffy said, taking a few gulps of his alcohol. "Now, do you know where we can get a ship around here?" he asked, putting the bottle down on the table.

"Sorry, but there isn't a place you could get a boat." Usopp said, shaking his head and crossing his arms. "You said you were looking for a new crewmate, right?" he took up a smug looking expression.

"Yeah." Luffy said, raising an eyebrow at the teen's behavior.

"I'll join you, but only if I can be captain." Usopp said looking self-prideful.

In response, the small crew said, in a deadpan voice. "No."

Usopp looked taken aback at the nonexistent hesitation they took to deny his offer. "Anyway, there isn't anywhere to get a ship here, sorry." he said after a few moments.

Zoro looked out the window and noticed a large mansion on top of the hill. "Then what's that, a summer home?" he sarcastically asked, pointing to the mansion.

Usopp suddenly slammed his hands on the table and standing up. "NO! Do not go there!" he shouted out, before regaining his composure and started sweating nervously. "W-well, would you look at the time, gotta go!" he said, dashing out of the restaurant.

"Wonder what that was all about." Nami muttered, looking at the door with a curious gaze.

"Yeah." Luffy agreed before shrugging and ordering more alcohol and food from the waitress, politely of course.

The three sat, ate, and drank for a few minutes then the three kids that were at the shore with Usopp burst in through the front door, screaming out. "THE USOPP PIRATES ARE HERE!"

The kids ran up to the table just as Luffy was having some Fetzer Crimson Red wine(**A/N:** It's real, I did my research.), wanting some variety, and was curious how it tasted.

'It's pretty good.' he thought offhandedly, pouring more for himself from the bottle.

The children held their wooden swords in front of them, trying to look threatening. "Where is the captain, what did you do to him?!" they asked, still trying to look threatening.

Drinking out of his wine glass, Luffy smirked, a mischievous plan forming in his head. Pretending not to notice the children, he looked at Zoro and spoke. "This wine is delicious, you should have some, Zoro." he didn't notice that some of the wine dribbled out from the corner of his mouth, making it look like blood dribbling out.

The kids looked frightened at this, and started trembling. "W-w-what did you do to him?" the middle one spoke.

Luffy gave a maniacal grin and spoke with a dark and evil voice. "Your captain?" he gave a slight evil chuckle, he looked down at the kids with an insane glint in his eyes. "We drained him of his blood!" he shouted in their faces, scaring them shitless.

They screamed and pointed at the laughing Nami. "AAAAHHHHH! OGRESS!" Nami took exception to that and rounded on them, glaring.

"WHY ARE YOU POINTING AT ME?!" she shouted at them with an angry tic mark pulsing on her head. To 'discipline' the children for their remark, she pounded their heads into the ground while Luffy and Zoro kept laughing at their prank while Nami scolded them for the 'joke' they pulled.

"Who are you three, anyway?" Luffy asked after he and Zoro calmed down enough to speak. The three kids answered individually.

"I'm Piiman." the child that first spoke had dark green hair shaped like a pepper, a short sleeved shirt, and blue shorts.

"I'm Ninjin." this child had short spiky purple hair that covers his eyes, a red hat atop his head with a tuft on top making his head resemble a carrot, and he was wearing a black hoodie and light orange pants.

"And I'm Tamanegi." the final child spoke, he had straight, light orange hair with a tuft on top, making his head look like an onion. He wore square glasses on his face, a yellow shirt with a blue vest jacket over it, a pair of brown shorts with a dark yellow sash around the waist.

"OK, well, I'm Luffy," the straw-hat teen pointed to himself, "that's Zoro," he pointed over to his first mate, "and this is Nami," he pointed to his navigator, "it's nice to meet you three. If you're looking for Usopp, we don't know where he is, he just dashed out after we mentioned that mansion up there."

Realization dawned on the childrens' faces and Piiman spoke up. "He went up there to talk to the ojou-sama that lives there. He goes up there all the time to tell lies to her."

Luffy choked on his wine a bit at hearing that. "What the- why would he do that?" he was very confused at why the children would be so proud of their 'captain' lying to a girl's face.

"He tells her fake stories that make her feel better. You see, the ojou-sama is sick and Usopp goes over there to make her feel better by telling fake stories that make her happy." Piiman explained.

Luffy stood silent for a few seconds, pondering what to do when he stood up. "Alright, come on guys, we know where to get a ship and I won't feel like an asshole trying to get one." he walked out of the restaurant with the kids and his crew following him. Nami was muttering something about not cursing around kids.

(short skip)

Luffy, Zoro, Nami, Piiman, Ninjin, and Tamanegi were standing near the mansion, trying to find a way in. Luffy wanted to knock the guards out quickly, but Nami said no.

"Just let me do it, it'll be quick and painless." Luffy tried to compromise again with knocking the guards out which got him Nami's fist crashing on his head.

He then felt a familiar presence on the other side of the fence along with a second unknown one, he put his hand up in a 'shut the fuck up' fashion."Usopp's on the other side of this fence." he said

"So? What's that got to do with it?" Nami asked a little grumpily.

"Just grab on, I'll do the rest." Luffy said, turning to the gate. Nami and Zoro hesitated, remembering last time, but did so anyway while the children grabbed on without hesitation. "Geppo." Luffy said, jumping up and 15 meters above the fence.

'Shit, messed up.' Luffy thought, berating himself for his mistake. "Nobody let go! I've got this!" he said, feeling their grips tighten around him at his words.

The six people fell to the ground at an alarming rate and when they were about to hit the ground, Luffy kicked the air again to slow their descent down enough to not get hurt. When he landed, everyone let go of him and collapsed, taking in large gulps of air.

"Who are you people?" he heard a curious voice come from above him, he looked up and saw a frail blonde woman looking at him with her head tilted to the right a bit in a curious motion.

Usopp looked to panic a bit before responding as if on instinct. "T-they're here to join my crew, obviously."

Luffy just ignored him and jumped onto the tree branch Usopp was on, landing next to him. "I was actually wondering if you could do us a favor, ojou-sama." he said politely, remembering the manners beaten into him by Shanks.

"A favor?" the young woman asked, tilting her head again to the side in curiosity.

"Yes, a favor. I was wondering if you could sup-" he was about to request for a ship when he was rudely interrupted by somebody.

"WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING HERE!?" an angry voice sounded out.

Everybody looked over and saw a lanky man with dark, slicked back hair, slim glasses, a pinstripe suit with matching dress pants and striped dress shoes.

"Oh, Klahadore these ar-" the blonde girl was just about to tell Klahadore who the people were, but was interrupted by aforementioned butler.

"No need to explain, Kaya-ojou-sama, I'll deal with this riff-raff before long." Klahadore said somewhat rudely and ordered the people before him. "Now, I believe it is time for you people to leave." he said, pushing his glasses up with the heel of his hand.

Before anyone could say or do anything, Luffy spoke out. "As far as I'm concerned, Miss Kaya, was it?" he got a nod of approval from Kaya. "Miss Kaya, here, owns this house and property, so we are staying until she says otherwise." Luffy said calmly, angering the butler.

Seeing no progression with Luffy, Klahadore switch to target Usopp. "Oh, it's you, Usopp. I have heard your name a lot throughout the village."

Usopp rubbed his nose proudly. "Of course the whole village knows me, they love me."

"Usopp the Liar, Usopp the Thief, Usopp the scoundrel. Must I go on?" Klahadore sounded condescending towards Usopp. "I do believe it is because of your worthless father."

Usopp flinched at the butler's remark. "What did you say about my father?" he growled out, glaring harshly at the butler.

"Klahadore, apologize, that was rude." Kaya scolded, frowning at her butler's choice of words against Usopp.

"I'm only speaking the truth, this is best for you, ojou-sama." instead of sounding caring like his words insinuated, his voice was highly condescending and he had a smirk on his face.

"It makes sense that Usopp would act like he does and get a bad reputation in town, his father is a scumbag pirate that knocked up some whore on the island." Klahadore continued on with his verbal onslaught against Usopp.

"Klahadore, you have gone too far! Apologize to Usopp right now!" Kaya screamed out, angry at Klahadore's attitude toward Usopp.

"I have nothing to apologize for, ojou-sama. It is the truth, after all, Usopp is just the accidental child from an unruly family." the butler said still with the annoying smirk on his face.

This seemed to enrage Usopp as he dropped down from his place in the tree and dashed to the butler, grabbing him by his collar and getting in his face. "Don't you dare badmouth my family, you bastard." he growled out, eyes swimming with rage.

"Why would you want to defend your family? Your father's just a piece of worthless pirate scum, and your mother allowed herself to get knocked up by a criminal." Klahadore mocked with cruel enjoyment.

This seemed enough to break Usopp, he pulled his fist back and threw it forward, hitting the butler in his face as hard as he can, shouting out in a rage. "SHUT UP!" the butler fell back and hit the ground, blood on his lip.

He slowly sat up, wiping the blood from his lip, chuckling a mirthless laugh. "Jumping right to violence, huh? Like father, like son."

Usopp was about to rush forward and hit the butler again. but stopped at Kaya's voice.

"Usopp, please stop." she said, lip trembling.

"Yes, stop and leave this area immediately, same with the rest of you!" Klahadore ordered. This angered the children and they didn't bother to hide it.

"Jerk!"

"Idiot!"

"Meanie!"

The children were immediately 'reprimanded' by Nami and told to leave with her and Zoro.

"Fine, I'll leave and never come back." Usopp said, storming out of the. Luffy frowned at Usopp taking Klahadore's words without a fight.

Luffy just sighed and dropped down from the branch. "Alright, come on guys, let's find Usopp and have a talk with him."

The three kids, Zoro, and Nami obliged and followed him out. They soon saw Usopp walking down the street, grumbling obscenities under his breath. Luffy put his hand on Usopp's shoulder, making him jump in shock.

He whipped around and calmed down at the sight of everybody. "Hey guys, what's up?" he asked casually.

Luffy pulled his hand off of the liar's shoulder and sat down on the fence that was near the path they were on.

"I was actually thinking about extending an invitation to you about joining my crew, Usopp." Luffy said with a grin, looking Usopp dead in the eye.

Usopp looked shocked for a quick second, before he narrowed his eyes at Luffy.

"No, I won't, I can't." he said defiantly, shocking Luffy and the rest with the slight hostility in his voice.

Just as Luffy was going to ask again, Usopp threw down a smoke pellet and when the smoke cleared, he was gone.

"He can run pretty fast." Zoro said blandly.

Luffy hopped off of the fence and turned to the kids. "Do you three have any idea where he could've gone?" the three seemed to think for a bit before answering.

"There is one place." Ninjin said.

"Yeah, the coast." Tamanegi quipped.

"He always goes there to think." Piiman said.

"It's in that direction." they all said, pointing southward.

Luffy nodded and started walking off. "I'll go talk to Usopp, you guys wait over here." he said, waving back at them.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO!?" Nami shouted at Luffy, a tic-mark pulsing on her head.

"You're nakama, bond a bit!" Luffy called out carelessly, still walking off.

Zoro and Nami stared at each other for a second before speaking.

"Asshole."

"Bitch."

There, bonded.

(at the coast)

Usopp was sitting at his thinking spot on the coast when he startled by Luffy's voice coming from behind him.

"The view here is great, no wonder you come here to think." he said, sitting next to Usopp. He was silent for a few moments before he spoke up again. "Is there any particular reason you don't want to leave?"

Usopp was silent for a few moments before speaking up again. "There are a couple of reasons. One of them is the village, I've made too many happy memories here to just up and leave. The second is…" Usopp trailed off at this point, but Luffy had a pretty good guess at what the reason was.

"It's your girlfriend, isn't it?" he said, almost teasingly. Usopp flared up like a radioactive tomato.

"She's not my girlfriend!" he shouted defensively, though his red face wasn't helping much.

"Whatever, you ever gonna talk to Kaya again?" Luffy asked Usopp with a quirked brow.

This turned Usopp's mood sour. "Not until that damn butler apologizes to me for badmouthing my father." he grumbled, an angry frown on his face.

Luffy looked down and saw the butler standing across from a strange looking man. "You wanna talk to the butler, he's right down there." he said, pointing at the coast.

"What the-! Why is he all the way out here?" Usopp exclaimed, muttering the last part.

"Let's listen in, this doesn't seem normal for someone like that butler." Luffy said, laying on the ground and pulling Usopp down with him.

"Jango, I told you to not draw any attention towards yourself, but I heard talk of people seeing a strange man sleeping in the middle of the street." Klahadore told Jango.

Jango just put his hand on his hat. "I didn't draw any attention to myself, and I am not weird." he complained slightly.

'Sure looks weird to me.' Luffy thought, sweat rolling down the back of his head.

"Whatever, how is the progress with the plan to murder the young mistress, Kaya, Captain Kuro?" Jango asked the 'butler' across from him.

"Kuro, Kuro. Wait, isn't he supposed to be dead?" Usopp muttered to himself under his breath.

"I told you not to call me by that name anymore, Jango. You're captain now, unless you've forgotten, and don't use murder, that's too crude." Kuro warned, pushing his glasses up by the heel of his hand.

"Oh, yes, I meant 'accident' of course." Jango said, putting his hand up to his mouth.

"Is the crew ready for tomorrow, Jango?" Kuro asked, pushing his glasses up again.

"Yes, of course, though they're a bit anxious captain." Jango told Kuro.

"Let's go over the plan again to make sure you remember." Kuro said, pushing his glasses up again.

"OK then," Jango cleared his throat a bit as he explained the plan to his captain, "me and the crew will attack the village at dawn, causing major damage. I will then proceed to go into the ojou-sama's mansion, and hypnotize her to write her will so that she would give everything to you after her 'accident'." Jango said.

"Remember, you have to hypnotize her to write her riches and property over to Klahadore, not Kuro, and make sure to make her death look like an accident." the fake butler reminded.

"Of course, of course." Jango waved off his worries.

Luffy and Usopp silently slipped away from the cliff and walked to a small clearing where Usopp started freaking out when he fully computed the situation.

"They're gonna kill Kaya and destroy the village, what should I do?" Usopp muttered frantically to himself as he paced to and fro.

"Usopp, calm down and think things through, alright?" Luffy said to Usopp, trying to get him to calm down, but it didn't work.

"I'm going to warn them, I've got to, especially Kaya." Usopp said with hardened resolve and dashed off before Luffy could stop him.

Luffy cursed silently to himself and walked off, looking for Zoro and Nami to tell them about Kuro. He spread out his haki and found them not in the same area, but in a clearing near the path they were on earlier with the three children.

Without another thought, he dashed his way over to the clearing, arriving in front of them and scaring the living shit out of the kids and startling Zoro and Nami.

"Hey guys." he said without a single care in the world.

Nami hit him on the head. "Don't do that again, you scared me!" she shouted, a tic-mark on her head.

"Whatever, there are more pressing matters ahead of us." Luffy said in a serious voice, gathering attention immediately.

"Well, what is it?" Zoro asked from his position against the trunk of the tree he was resting on.

"Klahadore is actually a pirate, Kuro of a Thousand Plans, to be exact and is wanting to attack the village tomorrow at dawn." Luffy bluntly stated, sitting down and crossing his legs.

Everyone stared at him shocked, before Nami noticed an absence. "Where's Usopp, wasn't he with you?"

"He ran off to tell the village before I could stop him." Luffy said, slightly irked at Usopp's inability to keep his panic down. "Right now, though, we can only wait for Usopp to show up again to see what we'll do, seeing as the invasion is in half a day."

Everyone agreed with that statement and started to wait for the long-nosed liar, so they all slept, all except for Luffy.

(few hours later - 9 hours until invasion)

Luffy and the others were walking to the village when they saw Usopp walking down a path clutching his left arm with his head down.

"Hey, Usopp!" Luffy called out, Usopp seemed startled to being called out to so suddenly, he moved an armband he had over a wound near his shoulder and turned around with a fake smile on his face.

"Hey guys, what's going on?" he greeted cheerfully.

Before Luffy could speak, the children spoke out. "Captain, we heard about Kuro attacking the village tomorrow, let us help you!"

Usopp shadowed his face so that no one could see it before he snapped his head and let out a boisterous fake laugh. "HAHAHAHA! I sure fooled you guys, I lied about that to get back at the butler!"

The kids looked shocked for a second before their faces dropped.

"You really got us captain." Tamanegi said, slightly impressed.

"Yeah, you sure did." Piiman said emotionlessly.

"I know you didn't like the butler, but that was too much." Ninjin said, disappointed with Usopp's 'lie'.

"I'm disappointed in you captain." Piiman agreed.

"Yeah, that was low, captain." Tamanegi put in his own two cents.

With those final words, the three kids left while the three pirates kept their eyes on Usopp, who sighed sadly after the kids left.

"You lied to keep the kids out of it, didn't you?" Zoro stated more than asked.

Usopp sat down against the fence on the side of the trail, sighing. "I had to, they'd die otherwise." he said, covering his face with his hand.

Nami took notice of his bleeding arm and rushed over. "Why is your arm bleeding?" without waiting for an answer, she pulled the armband back and saw a bullet wound on his arm.

"I got shot when I tried to warn Kaya." Usopp explained before he was roughly dragged to his home, which he explained where it was, and got it stitched, cleaned, and bandaged by Nami.

"I tried to warn everybody, but they didn't believe a single word I said." Usopp said miserably but then continued on with determination. "But, I'll still protect this village until my last dying breath."

Luffy looked pensive before he looked up and straight at Usopp. "Alright, we'll help you." Luffy said with a smirk, shocking Usopp.

"W-what? Why?!" Usopp questioned.

"For one, you're hopelessly outnumbered and outgunned." Zoro blandly stated.

"I'm not going to let you die." Luffy said with a grin on his face.

"And you have fear all over your face." Nami said with a slight smirk.

At the last statement, Usopp jumped up and thumped his chest, exclaiming that he wasn't scared of a bunch of pirates, which was all ruined by his shaking legs, which he tried to get under control before falling on his knees.

"Fine, I'm scared, but who wouldn't be, it's a whole crew! I know I can't handle a whole crew, but I'll do it for my village!" Usopp shouted out with confidence.

"That's why I said we'll help." Luffy said with his grin.

Nami was silent for a few moments before she sighed and put a smile on her face. "Fine, but I get first dibs on their treasure."

Zoro smirked and flicked one of his swords out a bit. "I've been itching for a fight, anyway."

Usopp's confidence suddenly increased ten-fold. "Alright, I've got an idea, but what are you guys best at?" he asked the three.

"I freeze people and kick ass." Luffy said, punching his open palm.

"I cut." Zoro blandly said.

"I steal." Nami said with a smirk on her face.

"And I hide." Usopp said flatly, earning him a smack upside the head from Luffy, Nami, and Zoro.

"NOT THIS TIME, YOU'RE NOT!" they shouted at the same time.

"Alright, alright." Usopp whined, nursing the bump on his head. "Whatever, it's time to get my plan underway!" everyone yawned at that, though.

"We should probably get some sleep though." Luffy said, leaning against the wall and falling asleep. Everybody else agreed and found a comfortable enough spot and fell asleep.

(Dawn - invasion commencing)

"This is a risky plan, you know that right?" Zoro asked his captain, who was standing next to him at the southern slope of the island that was covered in oil.

"Yeah, I still don't feel comfortable about leaving those two alone. I'm not saying they're weak, but Nami isn't much of a fighter and Usopp seems more like a distance fighter, which puts them at a disadvantage against a large horde of charging, bloodthirsty pirates." Luffy explained with a thoughtful look on his face.

"You thinkin' about training them in haki?" Luffy nodded in response.

"Yeah, it'll have to wait until we get a bigger ship, though, the training sessions for haki take up quite some space." he said, noticing the sun starting to peak above the horizon. "The pirates should be attacking soon."

Luffy and Zoro waited on top of the slope for five minutes before Luffy felt presences on the northern side of the island.

'Don't tell me.' Luffy thought, looking in the direction of the northern slope.

"Shit! They're attacking the northern side, Zoro, come on!" Luffy got an exclamation of approval from Zoro as they started running north.

However, Luffy noticed Zoro was starting to veer off to the left, so he reached out and snatched him up.

"What the- WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!?" Zoro shouted at Luffy with an angry shark-tooth expression.

"You were going the wrong way, so we're going to take the express ticket." Luffy said with a glint in his eye and paired with Luffy's famous grin, Zoro didn't like it one bit. "Soru."

Luffy dashed ahead still carrying Zoro, who felt as if all of the air was sucked out of his lungs in a split second. Although it was a short trip, it felt like eons to Zoro, when they stopped, Luffy dropped him on the ground.

The green-haired swordsman was about to snap at his captain but heard sounds of battle just outside of the forest they were in.

On a silent countdown, Zoro and Luffy dashed out and cleared out all of the pirates with one of their own techniques, launching the enemies down to the bottom of the slope.

"WHAT? You're that strong!?" Usopp's voice shouted out in shock.

"Of course, I gotta be to be the pirate king." Luffy said with his 'D' grin on his face, shocking Usopp with his proclamation.

"What!? Pirate king, you really must be crazy." Usopp said, muttering the last part and scratching his head.

Luffy looked to the bottom of the slope and saw the pirates surrounding Jango. "That weird guy is doing something over there." he said, pointing at the pirates.

"He's a hypnotist, don't let him do anything." Nami said cautiously.

"When I say 'One, two, Jango' you will all be super strong, your wounds will heal and you feel no fear." Jango said, swinging his pendulum blade in front of the crew. "One...two...JANGO!"

"There's no way that's going to work." Nami said unconvinced by the trick.

Suddenly, the pirates started roaring in beastial rage, their muscles bulging, eyes rolled up into their heads. One of them ran to the cliff nearby and smashed it with his fists, knocking a huge section off.

Nami and Usopp were hugging each other, screaming in fear while Luffy raised an eyebrow and Zoro put his guard up.

The pirates started a mad dash up the slope at the four. Luffy sighed and walked forward. "Zoro, I'll take care of them, you hang back." he said, lowering his hat to guard his eyes.

Zoro looked like he wanted to argue, but relented and let Luffy do what he wanted.

Luffy stopped halfway down the slope, still looking down. He brought his head up and glared at the incoming pirates, letting out a wave of **Haoshoku Haki**, knocking them out.

The pirates collapsed unconscious, foaming at the mouths, leaving only Jango conscious but scared shitless.

"It's not over, we still have those two." Jango muttered to himself before calling up to the ship. "Buchi! Sham! Come down here, we need you!"

A few moments after Jango shouted up to the ship, two figures jumped from the Black Cat pirates' ship and landed, cratering the ground. "Yes, captain what do you need us to do?"

The figure that spoke was a skinny man who was dressed like a cat, he had on cat ears, a pair of gloves with short cat claws on the finger tips.

"Yeah, captain, what do you need us for?" the other figure looked like the scrawny one, but really round and fat. Luffy shortly wondered if he could roll the fat one like a ball.

"I need you two to defeat those four." Jango commanded pointing to Luffy, Zoro, Nami and Usopp. "But mainly, that one." Jango pointed to Luffy.

"W-w-what, we can't do that, he looks too strong, captain." the skinny one stuttered out.

"Y-y-yeah, we only watch the ship, we're not supposed to fight." the fat one said fearfully.

"Whatever, now Sham, go!" Jango commanded the skinny one.

Sham jumped from being called. "Wh-why me?"

"Just go!" Jango shouted.

Sham complied, albeit very hesitantly. "A-a-a-alright then, get ready I'm gonna slice you into ribbons." he stuttered out, swiping in front of him with his cat glove.

Luffy was a bit skeptical at the scene and raised an eyebrow. "You sure you wanna do this, you'll get hurt badly if you do."

Sham suddenly grinned wickedly and lunged at Luffy full speed, swiping his claws down at him.

Luffy reached for his sword, but found that it wasn't there, he looked up and saw that Buchi had his sword, he couldn't block the swipe and had to take it head on.

Sham slashed Luffy across the chest, leaving four jagged, deep claw marks going from shoulder to hip.

Usopp was shocked by the scene, not knowing of Luffy's abilities. Zoro and Nami looked a bit worriedly at the scene, but noticed no blood from the cuts and relaxed.

"Heh, looks like his sword is all ours, Sham." Buchi said cruelly, holding Luffy's sword in his paws like it was a prize. This angered Zoro but he stood firm, knowing it was still Luffy's fight.

"You know, I'm offended," Luffy said, standing up, his 'wound' closing up, "it's not nice to treat somebody's sword as a trophy, just because I'm down doesn't mean I'm dead, and finally, I'm not defenseless without my sword."

"What the- HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE!?" Sham shouted, surprised at the turn of events.

"Now then," Luffy started, going down into a battle stance, "let's get started, shall we?" Luffy smirked before disappearing and reappearing near Sham.

"Busoshoku." he infused haki into his right elbow, turning it a sleek metallic black, and drove it into Sham's ribs, making him cough up blood and launching him into the cliff wall.

Usopp was amazed by Luffy's speed and strength. "Wait, why isn't he bleeding?" he questioned Nami, who stood next to him.

"We'll explain later, anyway I'm going to go plunder their ship." Nami dismissed the issue and ran towards the ship and nearly got hit with the flying body of Buchi.

She looked over at Luffy and saw him adjusting his sword on to his hip without a care in the world.

This seemed to have pissed Nami off because she snapped at Luffy about being careful where he sent his enemies flying with a shark-tooth expression.

Luffy, though, just waved her off. "Just go plunder that ship, that's what you were going to do anyway." he said, pointing to the pirate ship.

Nami didn't waste any time and rushed towards the ship, jumped aboard, and started her quest for loot.

Luffy turned to Jango and saw that he was frozen in place and sweating bullets, but he could tell it wasn't because of him.

"C-c-c-captain Kuro!" Jango shouted out in fear and surprise, looking to the top of the slope.

"It is past dawn, why hasn't the plan gone underway as I have ordered!?" Kuro shouted out, he had a small duffel bag in his left hand while his right hand pushed his glasses up

"W-w-well, it's these kids, captain. They're causing trouble." Jango stuttered out. He shut his mouth though when Kuro's glare hardened.

"I can see the crew is starting to wake up, tell them they have five minutes to kill these kids, or I'll kill all of you here right now." Kuro said coldly, the statement causing all of the pirates to go wide-eyed and snap awake in fear.

Jango clicked his tongue in slight annoyance and called the crew over. Luffy and Zoro didn't do anything to stop it.

"Guys, why aren't you stopping them?" Usopp called out in confusion and fear.

"We might be able to have some more fun." Luffy reasoned with a smirk, and Zoro wholeheartedly agreed.

"When I say 'one, two, Jango' you will all become exponentially stronger, have absolutely no fear, and all of your wounds will heal." Jango started swinging his pendulum blade in front of the crew. "One, two, Jango!"

Just like before, the pirates roared with beastial rage, their eyes rolled into their heads, and their muscles bulged, but it seemed to be intensified tenfold.

"Zoro." Luffy called out, drawing his sword and walking to stand next to Zoro, who drew his three and tied his bandanna around his head.

"Yeah, this is gonna be fun." Zoro said with a wolfish smirk, tightening his bandanna around his head.

Luffy gave his own wolfish grin. "Damn straight it will be." He and Zoro started to run at the hypnotized pirates who charged straight back at them.

"Santoryu: Tatsumaki!" Zoro shouted out, creating a whirlwind by spinning rapidly, slashing his three swords.

The pirates were thrown in all directions with dozens of minor, but fatal, slashes on their bodies from Zoro's attack.

"Fubuki hadō!" Luffy shouted, slicing the air in front of him, sending a long, pale blue wind blade at the hypnotized pirates.

The ones in front took the most damage from the wind blade with deep slashes on their chests, blood spraying out of their wounds in a small fountain.

The pirates behind were only knocked out or barely conscious from the aftershock of the attack that made their skeletal frames shake and rattle.

The large crew fell to the ground, all either unconscious, dead, or just conscious enough to register things around them.

By this time, Kuro was furious, his face darkened with pure rage.

"It seems that not even giving you a fighting chance would let you live, I guess I'll just kill the rest of you." Kuro coldly said, putting his cat gloves on that were in his duffel bag.

"KLAHADORE! STOP!" a feminine voice shouted out. everyone looked over and saw Kaya standing in front of the forest line.

She looked more pale than when Luffy and his crew had met her, she also had slightly flushed cheeks and was panting heavily.

The three(Luffy, Zoro, Usopp) were extremely surprised to see Kaya there.

"Kaya, what are you doing here!?" Usopp shouted out at her from behind the butler.

She ignored Usopp, though. "Klahadore, if what you want is my fortune, then I'll give it to you, just please leave this village alone." Kaya said determinedly.

"No, Kaya, he won't listen! Get out of here!" Usopp yelled in a panic, trying to get Kaya to listen to reason.

"You don't seem to understand, ojou-sama, " Kuro said with his plain voice, "I don't only want your fortune, I want your fortune and a peaceful life that has nothing to do with the sea." he said, turning his cold gaze over to her.

Kaya then pulled out a pistol and aimed it Kuro with shaky hands. "Klahadore, stop this now!" she shakily shouted out.

Kuro put on a dark smirk and spoke with a mocking tone as he brought back memories of him taking care of her and going out to the village with her over the course of three years, making Kaya tremble with and drop the flintlock pistol she was holding as she fell on her knees, sobs wracking her body.

Luffy narrowed his eyes into a glare at the butler. 'I hate this guy even more.' he thought bitterly, seeing how Kuro manipulated Kaya's feelings.

Zoro side-eyed his captain and stepped away a bit, knowing this was going to get ugly, fast.

"Kuro!" Usopp shouted in a rage, holding up his slingshot that already had a lead pachinko ready to fly.

"Oh, Usopp-kun, I didn't notice you there." Kuro said carelessly.

This enraged Usopp more as he let the lead pachinko fly straight at Kuro. Without much effort, Kuro disappeared and reappeared behind Usopp with his claws touching the young lads face.

Usopp was trembling in fear and sweating bullets.

"That punch you gave me hurt quite a bit, and I don't like being hit." Kuro said mockingly.

Luffy's eyes gained a dangerous glint to them as he watched the scene before smirking.

"Soru." Luffy disappeared from his spot near Zoro and reappeared behind Kuro, and backhanding him to the treeline.

"If you hate getting hit so much, you're gonna hate fighting me." Luffy said, grinning widely.

"Y-you, how did you get here?" Usopp stuttered in shock, wondering how he suddenly appeared behind him.

Luffy just ignored Usopp as he cracked his knuckles with a smirk on his face. Luffy's expression changed to shock and surprise along with everyone else's when the three children jumped out of the forest and started beating Kuro with miscellaneous objects.

The children shouted insults and threats at the pirate captain as they hit him with their 'weapons'.

The three little ones stopped 'beating up' the pirate and turned to Usopp panting.

"We did it, Captain!" Tamanegi shouted proudly, holding up his shovel.

"Yeah, we beat that butler!" Piiman exclaimed with a large grin.

"Because we're the Usopp Pirates!" Ninjin shouted out, thumping his chest.

The kids seemed to want to impress Usopp, but it didn't work, seeing as Usopp looked horrified at what the kids did.

"You three need to get out of here, now!" he shouted at them, ending their celebrating, Usopp noticed that Kuro stood up fixing his glasses with a murderous look in his eyes.

Usopp saw this and knelt down. "You guys can't stay here, so I'm giving you the most important job. I need you three to run into the forest and keep Kaya safe, understand?" Usopp told the children.

"But, cap-" Piiman started, but was interrupted by Usopp.

"Do you understand!?" he exclaimed more forcefully. The kids all got resolute expressions and nodded in determination as they ran to Kaya and pulled her into the forest.

"Jango go after the girl." Kuro ordered his hypnotist.

"Yes, captain." Jango said, running to the forest.

"Also, take care of the little ones, they're annoying." Kuro said coldly. Jango nodded in affirmative and disappeared into the forest.

"Zoro, Usopp go with them, I'll take care of this butler!" Luffy ordered, turning to Kuro with a smirk on his face.

Usopp didn't hesitate and ran into the forest, Zoro hot on his trail.

Kuro saw this and tried to cut them off, but stopped due to a massive windblade that sailed along the ground, cutting his path off. He turned and glared at Luffy, whose sword pointing at him.

"Your business is with me, Kuro." Luffy said with a grin.

"What is your reason for helping Usopp?" Kuro questioned, pushing his glasses up with the heel of his hand.

"I don't want him to die." Luffy simply stated, pulling his sword back for a thrust.

"Fubuki jūdan!" he shouted, thrusting his sword forward and sending out a pale blue windbolt (A/N: Think like Ryuuma's thrust, but only pale blue and not as strong, but still pretty strong).

Kuro looked shocked for a second before he vanished and reappeared behind Luffy and raised his claws ready to strike Luffy. "That's a ridiculous reason to help someone." he said as he brought his claws down on Luffy.

Luffy quickly brought his sword around and blocked Kuro's claws easily, sparks flying from the point of contact. "That's what you think." he said, swinging his fist at Kuro, who dodged by vanishing again.

Kuro reappeared at the bottom of the slope in front of his former crew, who was now fully awake. Kuro looked at his crew as if they were trash. "I still haven't gotten to killing you yet, have I?"

This caused the still conscious pirates to reel back in fear and shock. "C-c-captain Kuro?" one of them, who were still standing, questioned apprehensively.

Kuro's face seemed to darken immediately as he disappeared again and reappeared behind the one that spoke and slashed across his back, causing his body to fall to the ground in multiple pieces with blood pooling below his cold lifeless corpse.

Luffy's eyes widened in outrage and shock as Kuro killed one of his crewmates. Luffy saw Kuro going for another and disappeared. He reappeared in between Kuro and his next victim as his claws were blocked by Luffy, letting sparks fly.

The lucky crew member fell back in shock at what happened.

Kuro raised an inquisitive eyebrow, still holding his cat claws against Luffy's sword. "Why did you protect him, boy?"

Luffy's expression was shadowed by his hat and spoke quietly, but the entire crew still heard what he said.

"You treat your crew like disposable toys, Kuro?" he spat out Kuro's name like a sour lemon.

"They are only mere pawns in my plan for an everlasting peaceful life that has nothing to do with the sea." Kuro said, jumping back from Luffy to get some space.

"You became a pirate without real conviction? God, you're such an idiot." Luffy said mockingly.

"What did you say, brat?" Kuro all but growled out in a rage.

"When you become a pirate, that's the moment you devote yourself to piracy. But to give up not even halfway through, now that's either cowardice, or foolishness." Luffy said in a matter-of-fact tone.

Kuro's eyes darkened in rage, and then let his upper body dangle limply and sway from left to right as he took slow steps forward.

"No, captain, don't use that!" one of the pirates shouted in fear.

_'What's so bad, he's just swaying.'_ Luffy thought to himself as he cocked an eyebrow in questioning.

"Shakushi!" Kuro disappeared after a few tense moments as the pirates were all now trembling in utter fear.

"GAH!" one of the pirates screamed out in pain as he got slashed across the chest by Kuro.

This caused the pirates to tremble in fear even more as they sweat and some looked close to insanity.

Luffy's rage and hatred at the butler came back in full force as he could sense some of the attacked pirates die instantly.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU TAKE YOUR MEN FOR, YOU SON OF A BITCH!?" he shouted in a rage. He suddenly felt an attack coming and put up his logia defenses to take the attack.

Two large gashes appeared on Luffy's leg, but closed up as soon as they appeared.

_'Two dead, three dead, four dead.'_ Luffy unconsciously counted out as he felt the pirates behind him get slaughtered.

Having enough of what Kuro was doing, he dropped down into a handstand and quickly swung his legs around in a circle.

"Rankyaku: zen-en!" he shouted out, sending out a ring airblade all around him.

The blade crashed into the cliff walls and slope kicking up large clouds of dust. Kuro got smashed into the wall by the airblade, cracking some of his ribs and making him cough up blood.

Luffy smirked and dashed at Kuro, brought his leg up, brought it back down onto Kuro's cat claws on his right hand, breaking them off at the fingertips.

"WHAT!? He broke Kuro's claws!?" one of the still unharmed pirates shouted out in shock.

Without wasting any time Kuro jumped back on his feet and started his technique again.

"Shakushi!" he disappeared and random slash marks appeared on the rock faces and more of the pirates, making them scream in pain as blood sprayed out in fountains from their wounds.

Luffy narrowed his eyes at the display. "Soru." he disappeared and reappeared a moment later holding Kuro up by his throat.

Luffy's expression was shadowed by his hat as he didn't flinch at Kuro's attempts of clawing his arm off. "I do believe I've had enough of this Kuro." Luffy said in a cold voice as he tightened his grip on Kuro's neck.

The butler pirate struggled even more and started thrashing in Luffy's grip as his attempts at slicing the straw-hatted man's arm off.

"I'd kill you right here, but that would be too traumatizing to three people here." Luffy said still with his cold tone of voice. He sensed Usopp, Kaya and Nami watching ever since he broke Kuro's claws.

"So, instead, I'm just going to beat you near death." Luffy said with an evil smirk on his face. Luffy threw Kuro into the cliff wall at breakneck speeds, kicking up a dust cloud.

Luffy jumped into the air and pointed his arms where he sensed Kuro. He froze the moisture in the air into dozens of ice arrows.

"Hyōya arashi!" he launched three arrows down at Kuro, which he barely managed to dodge by dashing to a different position.

Luffy continued to track him though, using observation haki and continued launching the arrows at Kuro.

The last arrow pierced Kuro's leg and pinned him to the cliff wall, making him scream in agony and nearly pass out from the pain.

Luffy wasn't finished though as he drew his katana and drew it back, ready to thrust. He thrust the sword forward, shouting out. "Fubuki jūdan!" but he stopped short as Kaya stepped in front of Kuro.

"What are you doing? You could have been killed!" Luffy shouted out, angry at Kaya for doing something so foolish.

Luffy's eyes widened slightly as Kaya glared defiantly into his eyes. "Even though he caused so much, I can't just let you do this to him!" Kaya shouted out with the utmost conviction in her voice.

Luffy sighed and sheathed his sword, causing Kaya to relax. "Fine, I won't beat him half to death." Luffy said in resignation. "That doesn't mean he won't be hurt, though."

Luffy disappeared and reappeared in front of Kuro. "Busoshoku." he muttered, causing his fist to turn a dark shade of metallic black.

Luffy launched his fist into Kuro's gut, causing him to cough out blood and lose consciousness. Luffy un froze the arrow in his leg, causing it to turn back into water vapor.

"He's still alive, so take your living back and don't bother the village again!" Luffy shouted, tossing the unconscious body of Kuro at the pirates.

Needless to say, the pirates didn't waste a second gathering the bodies of Kuro and the Nyaban brothers and sailing back out to sea.

"Everyone good?" Luffy asked, looking around at his crew, Usopp and Kaya.

"Tired, but fine." Zoro said, yawning and stretching his arms.

"Yep." Nami said with a smile on her face as she hugged the bag of treasure she got from looting the pirate ship.

"Yeah." Kaya and Usopp said in unison, though Kaya looked a little flushed and tired.

"Ok then, that's good. Let's get back to the village, get supplies, and rest up, I'm a bit tired myself." Luffy said, already making his way into the village with everyone following him, and Kaya leaning Usopp for support, causing the long-nosed liar to blush.

(The next day)

Luffy and his crew were sitting at a table in the restaurant, talking over their next course of action.

"Looks like we didn't get a ship, I guess we'll have to go to another island, then." Luffy said, taking a sip from his wine glass. He was slightly disappointed that he couldn't get a ship on the island, but excited at the same time for the next adventure.

"There you are, I've been looking for you guys for a while now." Luffy and company turned to the voice that came from the door and saw Kaya in her regular gown with a brown coat that was unzipped over it.

She looked a lot more healthy compared to when they first met her, which was a plus. "Kaya, what are you doing here?" Luffy questioned, putting his wine glass down and standing from his seat.

"I wanted to gift you all for helping Usopp protect the village." Kaya said with a smile on her face.

"Gift us?" Zoro asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Is it money?" Nami excitedly asked, clasping her hands together while her eyes were replaced with Beli signs and had an overly-cheerful smile on her face.

"Come with me down to the coast, and you'll see." Kaya said with a small wink of her eye.

"Alright, come on guys." Luffy said, taking the wine bottle with him and tossing some of his money at the yelling bartender.

Nami and Zoro shrugged and followed after.

(scene skip)

"Is this really ours now?" Luffy asked hopefully, looking at the caravel before him.

"Indeed it is, it's called the Going Merry, I designed it myself when I was a young lad." Merry, Kaya's butler, said with a proud smile on his face.

Merry walked up to Luffy who was admiring the ship with a grin on his face. "If I could have a moment of your time, I'd like to show you how to steer the ship and control it."

Luffy looked a little surprised at Merry. "You should tell Nami, she's the navigator, and she could tell me later, anyway." Luffy said with a grin on his face.

Merry nodded and walked over to Nami and began explaining how the ship worked.

"AAHHHHHHH! SOMEBODY STOP ME!" everybody present heard a loud shout coming from the slope and saw a big rolling green ball heading straight for the ship.

"Zoro, we gotta stop that thing, it's on a crash course with our ship." Luffy ordered, running to the ball with Zoro to stop it.

They put their feet up and stopped it, only to find out that Usopp was strapped to it, and that their feet were on his face.

"T-thanks, guys." he muttered from underneath their feet.

"No problem." they said nonchalantly, dropping their feet and letting Usopp get his balance back.

A few minutes later, Usopp took off the giant ball, which was his backpack, and put it next to his dinghy, he looked up at Luffy and Zoro with a smile on his face.

"Looks like this is where we say goodbye, see ya guys on the sea someday." Usopp said with a grin on his face.

"Eh, what the hell are you talking about?" Luffy asked rudely with a slight frown on his face.

"What are you talking about, we are going to see each other out there, right?" Usopp asked with a raised eyebrow and a confused frown on his face.

"Just quit your babblin' and get on, you're practically part of my crew already." Luffy said leaning on the railing.

Usopp's eyes widened in surprise for a second before he broke out in a huge grin and started dancing a happy dance, and Luffy thought he heard him singing a bit under his breath.

Usopp's dance was cut short when he heard Kaya spoke out. "I do hope you keep yourself safe and strong, Usopp-kun." she said with a smile on her face, and seemed really giddy for something that no one could pinpoint.

"You're darn right I will, I'll be the bravest warrior on the seas!" he proudly exclaimed, jabbing a thumb at his chest with a large grin on his face.

"Good, you'll have to." Kaya's smile became even larger, along with Merry's, as if they knew something Luffy and the others didn't. "Because I'm coming with you all." she finished off happily, shocking everyone present except for Merry.

"B-but, you can't, right?" Usopp stuttered out in surprise.

"Merry and I had a long talk about this already and he's approved of it. I've also thought about this long and hard, so don't try to stop me." she said with confidence and that same smile on her face.

Before Usopp was going to argue again, Luffy spoke out. "Seeing as how steady you are in your position on the matter, what can you bring to the crew?" he asked curiously.

"Well, I do have some medical knowledge, I can't fight very well, though." Kaya said, letting out a sheepish laugh at the end.

"Well then," Luffy let out a large grin, "welcome to the crew, Kaya, Usopp!" he shouted out, ending it with his classic laugh.

* * *

Ahhhhh, finally done. I'm sorry this one took a while, I've had things with school and some family stuff to deal with. Anyway, review if you want, follow if you want, or favorite it if you want, it'd be greatly appreciated. Flames will be ignored.


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